Lost Traces of You and Me
by whogivesadigit
Summary: For reasons unknown to even him, Axel ends up alive once more and in pursuit of Roxas alongside Sora and his friends. Things are complicated, however, by the fact that not even those Axel had known in the past have memories of him.
1. Into the Abyss

Disclaimer: I don't own the Kingdom Hearts universe or any of the characters within it, and in successive chapters I will not own them either.  
>Warnings: Some violence, blood, mild language and mild suggestive themes.<br>See profile for other information.

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><p>It was all black. Darkness. Darkness, the very thing that had influenced him and all of the others he'd conspired with. They'd all wished to fill the darkness in their chests, the empty hole left behind by the heart's void. It had been a helpless yearning, the one for the darkness; it was an inevitable part of all of their lives and those so close to it, and as was with him and the other Nobodies, they simply could not avoid succumbing to it. The pressure, the <em>attraction<em> was too great. It was a difficult thing for Somebodies to understand, how attractive the dark becomes when all light has left. But he could tell as he surveyed the pitch-black vacancy that he had been wrong, that they _all_ had been wrong. The darkness did not lead to the light — the darkness led to nothing but more darkness.

Yet something else piqued his interest as he took in the emptiness around him: the darkness, the one surrounding him in his wake once again, was different this time. It didn't feel like it was his friend, or even an acquaintance; it felt cold, and he couldn't help holding onto a feeling of discomfort as he lay on his back, frozen in place. His eyes were instinctively closing as he absorbed the cold surrounding him. It felt like a cold he knew, like a cold that he'd felt before. The cold was peculiar, though, because it was not the kind of felt that he _said_ he felt, but the kind that he had _actually_ felt, when he could feel such things.

At first he wasn't sure if he was awake at all, but he blinked his eyes and couldn't imagine ever having a dream so vivid (a realization he thought to be very contradictory). He himself didn't even understand how a dream in pitch black could be considered vivid, but, despite this, he didn't question it. He just had this feeling that what was happening to him was real. But, then again, he was unsure if these "feelings" he claimed to have were to be trusted.

He became conscious of himself at last, and stood up. The last thing he remembered was fading away into nothingness.

He spun around, searching in the empty black abyss, but he could see nothing. After several moments passed, a thought plagued him. He wondered if there really was there nothing there, or he could he just not see what was right in front of him. Composing himself, he took a bold step forward, closing his eyes once again as he readied himself for death, for true death, the kind where he couldn't come back.

But he didn't fall into the nothingness; in fact, he remained upright. He took yet another bold step, opening his eyes and letting the toe of his boot feel the solidity of the ground before continuing. The coldness was becoming too pervasive to ignore, and he glanced down just to realize he himself wasn't even there. He stretched out his arm and wrist and found that he could feel them but that neither portion of his limb was visible.

_I don't get this_, Axel thought, scrunching his features in contemplation. _I… I gave it up. All of it. So… why am I…? Am I…_

He paused, still thinking. After a few moments, he cleared his throat.

"Hey! Hey, anyone there? Anyone? Hello-o?" There was no reply, and Axel bit his lip.

Suddenly, a spark caught his eye. He soon noted that it wasn't really a spark; it was, in fact, more like a compressed ball of light. It formed just above his line of sight, and he keenly looked to it. Instinctively he wanted to touch it, but he stopped himself, letting his hand dangle just a few centimeters from the light floating above him. He held it there for a few moments, wrinkling his features as he flexed his fingers hesitantly.

_Oh, what the hell_, he thought as a smirk gradually spread across his face. _What's… the worst that could happen?_

_I …die?_ He chuckled at the thought, his shoulders rolling back and shuddering as he sniggered.

Formulating his typical cocky demeanor, Axel outstretched his arm and touched the light.

The effect was blinding. He covered his eyes as the white overwhelmed him, and he felt himself fall, his eyes closing as he automatically tried to brace for the impact. Despite the protection of his eyes, his behind remained unprotected, and after falling a shock of pain was sent to his backside. After grunting and rubbing the area, he removed his hand from his eyes and took in what was laid out before him. Or rather, what stood before him.

"Heya, buuuddy! Long time no see, don't you think? A bit too long for my taste, anyway," the familiar voice joked at him, reverberating as if there were walls surrounding them. He placed a dramatic hand on his hip and formulated a grin like none Axel had seen in the longest time. "So, how ya been?"

Axel's jaw had dropped, and he was gaping. He remained on the ground, too awestruck to move any closer. Surrounding him, and ... the boy… was pure white, similar to how the previous area had been purely black. The ground was intact here as well, as the boy was standing directly upright, and Axel had no trouble sitting. He could see himself now, and the black coat that had enshrouded him in his death.

"What's that?" the boy said, giving him a familiar smirk. "Didn't you miss me?"

_This is ridiculous_, Axel thought, shaking his head as all his prior amusement left him. _Someone's messing with my head —_

"No one's messing with you, Axel, sheesh," the boy said, making eye contact upon seeing Axel's shock. "This is Lea. Ya know… You."

_He can hear my thoughts? The hell's going on —_

"Of course I can. I'm you. Duh," Lea said, pulling an eyelid down and sticking his tongue out at Axel.

"Look, kid," Axel started, furrowing his brow in what appeared to be anger. "I don't know what the hell is going on here, but I know that there's _no way_ that you're me."

Axel stood and looked down at his young self.

"The whole me is gone. Got it _memorized_?"

"You don't _really_ believe that," Lea said matter-of-factly, then scrunched his face a few moments later. "Well, okay. I'm not _actually_ you. But, come on. Don't you remember? I'm the other _half_ of you."

"What do you want?" Axel asked, ignoring his claim.

"Well, what do most halves want?" Lea asked.

Axel just stared back at those emerald eyes, those eyes that he knew so well, and said nothing.

"They want to be whole. With their _other half_, as the saying goes," Lea replied, pausing. "Though I guess that saying's more for girl on guy action, but what the hey. It works, right?"

"Whole?" Axel repeated quietly, ignoring Lea's additional comment.

"Yeah, you know. Two halves make a whole?" Lea said — or at least, Axel thought he said. He realized a few moments later that the boy's lips hadn't moved at all.

Taken aback, Axel looked down, away from this madness that was unfolding before him. Soon he clenched his fists, a haphazard attempt to stop himself from shaking, and looked up quickly, locking his eyes with the gaze of this_ kid_ claiming to be him.

"Tell me what's going on, kid," Axel demanded, attempting to summon his chakrams. He then grunted heatedly when they failed to appear.

"Whoa, chill out," Lea said, laughing and seeming to enjoy Axel's confusion. Axel's eyebrow raised as his mouth shifted, his upper lip curled.

"This ain't funny, kid!" Axel shouted, but didn't move.

_Someone's messing with me, alright_. He was strangely sure of it. _They… they know what I want, and they're loving taunting me with it. Well, too bad. I've had enough of that in _any_ life._

"Axel," Lea said, finally with a more serious tone, "I'm not fake. I'm your other. And now that we're both here… we can be whole again."

"C'mon kid, cut the act," Axel shouted back, anger boiling. "You think you can make up some lies and just boss me around? That I'll just go along with it and be at your beck and call? Well, think again. I'm sick of doing things I don't wanna do."

Axel furrowed his brow; his voice had quieted.

"Well, that's nice, but I'm not joking," Lea called back at him, putting a hand behind his neck. He sighed quietly. "Touch me, Axel. Touch me, and we'll be whole."

"'Scuse me?" Axel asked, too taken aback to recall his anger.

"Touch me. That's all you have to do, and we'll be whole."

_It can't… it can't be that simple. This kid—_

"When did I get so paranoid?" Lea asked, talking to himself. "Maaan, what happened to the easygoing me…?"

Lea cleared his throat. As the boy had readied to speak, he'd craned his head upward, as if expecting to see something come from the empty sky.

"Look, Ax. How do you think I know what you're thinking?" Axel stiffened as Lea looked at him again, his gaze much less flippant than before. "Well, I'll tell you. It's cause we're part of the same person. And… if that _still_ doesn't convince you… touch," Lea said, holding out an arm. As he did so, the light around both of them seemed to blur. When the two met eyes again, Axel's breathing began to straighten out. His anger had simmered out, another fire he hadn't the energy to fuel, and now he was finding himself close to believing the boy. He was appalled at his own thoughts; his own desperate want for it all to be real. Because it wasn't. It couldn't be.

He simply stood for a while, gazing down enviously — no, remorsefully — at the other boy. His hand was slowly inching toward Lea's outstretched palm and he had to continually prevent himself from reaching out far enough to make direct contact — until he decided to let himself do what he wanted. Axel reached out, slowly uncurling his fingers. He could feel his mind preparing himself for the blast, the explosion, the cataclysm. When, finally, after several minutes of effort, they touched.

As Axel's hand brushed Lea's wrist, the vortex of light and darkness enveloped the two of them. Frightened by the sudden consumption, Axel attempted to draw his hand back, but it felt as if it had been glued to Lea's. Tugging consistently in fear as the tornado twirled, Axel realized he was stuck. His mouth hung ajar, and through the vortex he let his gaze drift skyward. His fearful eyes met Lea's. He was befuddled by what he saw: Lea's eyes were calm, unafraid, a fact that seemed unfathomable to Axel as both their worlds began to spin. The vortex whirled around and around, rapidly now, until it was spinning so quickly that both of them were swallowed by the tornado of light and dark.


	2. Reunions

Axel felt his body land atop some rather uneven ground in a matter of an instant.

Notwithstanding the brevity of the fall, the pain in his backside was as prominent as it had been before, and for understandable reasons he felt a little nauseous, so after opening his eyes he took a moment to get a hold of himself. To do so he let in a few soft but deep breaths, fluttering his eyes in rhythm with his breathing. This continued for several seconds until he felt something moving below him — until he realized it wasn't the ground that was bumpy, but, rather, that he was on top of someone.

"Ow," the young boy said, rubbing his forehead. He brushed aside long brown bangs and made eye contact with Axel.

"S-Sora?" Axel exclaimed, jumping off of him and staggering backward, falling over. His head was still spinning from the tornado a few moments ago.

"What? How do you know my name?"

"Huh?" Axel blinked a few times.

Frantically, he searched for a way to discover his own appearance. To his puzzlement, his clothes were unfamiliar. Ignoring this, he cleverly summoned a chakram and observed his reflection. He was surprised to find that, aside from the clothing differences, his appearance was exactly the same; his age had remained, at least visually, the same as last he had recalled.

Axel looked up at Sora, a baffled expression on his face.

_Then why doesn't he… _Axel's own thought was interrupted by a severe pain in his chest, to which he grasped, closing his eyes.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah… yeah," Axel said, but he was sure his face still looked astonished. "You… really don't remember me?"

"I've never met you. I think I would've remembered a tall guy with HUGE red hair and really bright green eyes."

Axel felt less dizzy now, and looked back at Sora in the face. Mentally he drew lines across all of the other boy's features, and noticed something he would have never expected. He looked… older. Or at least more mature than when Axel had known him. His brow was slightly more rigid, his cheeks slightly less round, and his height slightly greater. Axel placed his empty hand atop his head, cocking his head somewhat to the right.

They were in a town, Axel soon noticed, surrounded by dimly lit buildings, though the sky was dark. Axel staggered a little as he glanced up, awestruck by the odd nature of the world. It was one he did not recognize.

Sora was looking up, then around. He scratched his head and eyed Axel.

"Where'd you fall from? There aren't any buildings above us… huh?"

Those were the last words Axel heard.

* * *

><p>Someone was humming — that was the first thing Axel noticed when he returned to consciousness. In the few moments before he opened his eyes he couldn't quite determine with absolute certainty what the song was, but he was more than fairly confident that it was "It's a Small World", and, truthfully, he wasn't fond of waking up to such a haunting song. He allowed his eyes to wander after he opened then, and he soon saw the source of the sounds: it was an older man, probably about forty (Axel couldn't help but think he was probably notin the top three of people he would have pictured to have been humming "It's a Small World"). The man was chewing on a toothpick and had goggles strapped to his head, shielding his faded blond hair. He'd been sitting in a small wooden chair with his legs crossed, but he uncrossed them as he noticed Axel's eyes opening. He grinned, causing the toothpick to veer upwards.<p>

"Oh, hey, kid. You're just in time. Hey, Aerith!" He turned to the door, shouting. "Kid's awake!"

Axel sat up, rubbing his head as he glanced around the room. It was apparently planned around the color red, as the walls, the doors, the carpet, and the supports for the bed all bore it. He quickly noticed the three doors that provided entry to the place; one was to his left, another to his right, and the last was directly in front of him. In the left corner of the room he could see a small wardrobe atop a table and to his right was another table with odd objects on it. Though cramped, Axel declared the room, in general, to be rather nice.

"Hey, kid, relax. You'd better lay back down, Aerith's coming, and I don't think she'd fancy ya sitting up already. So what's your name?"

Axel hesitated very noticeably.

As he'd open his mouth to say "Axel", and then add his typical tagline, he realized that he'd been joined with Lea again — or _something_ had likely happened between the two of them. If he felt so inclined, it wouldn't be improper to use his original, given name. He sat for a few seconds and observed himself. He couldn't see his face as of now, but when he'd spoken with Sora he'd looked like his typical Nobody self. Tilting his head, he continued to contemplate. Out of the corner of his eye, Axel saw the man tilt his head as well, his toothpick once again shifting position as his expression reverted back to a frown.

_Wait… Sora!_

"Where's Sora?" Axel threw in, quickly sitting up again.

"Kid, I asked yourname. And ya shouldn't be…"

"Where is he?"

"Frankly, I ain't sure. I asked your name."

Axel seemed to hesitate again, then, closing his eyes, spat out, "A-Axel. Get it …memorized."

"Heh, ya sure about that?" the man said, raising an eyebrow. Axel gave him an aggravated look, curling a fist. The man nearly laughed. "Kid, you can't fight right now. Don't think ya could take me even if ya could."

"Pft," Axel scoffed, dramatically summoning a chakram, "I can take an old man like you any day, Pops. And I ain't a _kid_. Get that memorized too."

"Old man?" The man looked offended for a few moments, but then was shocked at the sudden appearance of the weapon in Axel's hand. He soon backed off. Not long after this, his expression changed again, his eyes narrowing as he removed the toothpick from his jaw, throwing it into a nearby waste bin. He stood still, his eyes never leaving Axel's weapon.

"What's going on in here?" A woman's voice became apparent in the doorway, and Axel turned to it. The woman seemed calm, despite Axel's large weapon. "Cid, you can leave? Thank you… And could you put that away?"

Axel glanced down to his hands, which both held the weapons, and did so reluctantly as Cid left the room, grumbling.

Axel looked her over. She was a girl (obviously) that he had never seen or met before. Although she was standing up, he could easily tell that she was much shorter than he was; she was probably, he estimated, at least thirty centimeters shorter. Her hair was brown, as was common for her whitish skin color, but her eyes were a bright green, similar to Axel's. The hair was tied in a braid with a pink bow, and she wore a long dress that matched the shade of the bow. Lastly, he noted, she was attractive.

"You should lie down," she said. He ignored her and looked away.

"Look, the concern's nice and all, but I'm fine," he said.

"You really should lie down," she repeated, touching his shoulder and catching him off guard. He flinched at the touch, and she drew back. "Your heart rate was so irregular. If you push it, who knows…"

Axel, of course, understood the implication that was being made. It would probably be in his best interest to obey her, he acknowledged. This reasoning lasted until a few seconds later, when something crossed his mind after some delay.

"Heart rate?" Axel repeated, shocked. He placed his hand across his chest, and he felt it. It was beating. His chest was heaving, not in a mock imitation of a heart and lungs functioning, as occurred with a Nobody, but a genuine, wave-like motion. On top of the wave-like motion, there was something else, something even more convincing of his heart's existence — a beat. Ba-dump. Ba-dump, it sounded. A sound so familiar, a sound he'd sought to hear for the longest time, a sound that finally, finally was his.

"Is something wrong?" Aerith asked him, as he clutched the middle of his chest where his heart pounded.

"No," Axel said, shielding a smile. "Everything's… everything's just great."

He felt a sudden desire to get up and give his new heart a whirl, but her pleading look stopped him.

_Why does she care so much? She just met me… And I doubt the first impression I made is doing me any good. Whipping out a chakram right in her face made her worship the ground I walk on, I'm sure._

Feeling uncomfortable now — a genuine, heartfelt discomfort, he thought, almost pleased — he leaned back, obviously to her surprise.

"There, happy?" he said, almost in a mocking way, though that wasn't how he'd meant it. He placed his hands behind his head and proceeded to lean.

He'd been cranky initially, but was already feeling a little more contented with his surroundings. It'd caught him off guard, actually — the anger. It just seemed so wrong: he'd found himself to be alive again, with a beating heart, and the first thing he'd felt was anger. Not happiness, not relief, not thankfulness or invigoration or ecstasy. Anger.

"Yes," she said, chuckling, and Axel almost forgot what he'd said. He turned his attention back to her.

"Soooo, who're you?" Axel asked, acting bored.

"I'm Aerith," she replied. "And you?"

"Axel. Got it memorized?" He said it with quite a bit more confidence this time, even pointing to his temple for effect.

"Well, I think so," she said, smiling.

"You'd better. It's very important." He placed his hands back behind his head once again and stretched a little.

Aerith chuckled. He looked to her, smiling.

"Hey, I'm serious."

"Right," she said, still smiling. "I have to go for now, Axel, so just stay put, okay?"

He was hesitant to answer. As he'd opened his mouth to speak, he suddenly felt strangely uncomfortable. There was something that felt not quite right about what he was considering telling her.

_What's the problem, man? Why do I feel… like I shouldn't? _Axel thought, in denial. _Who am I kidding? It's 'cause I'm gonna lie to her. _

_So, this is what all the hype is? This… _

"Really, Axel, please stay," Aerith repeated, seeing him pause. "Sora told us to take care of you, and we can't unless you do your part."

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be a good boy." She departed before the second half of her statement had registered with him. "Wait, where's —?"

He yelled after her, but she was already gone.

* * *

><p>Axel was bored out of his mind for the rest of the day. A heart didn't seem to affect his feeling of boredom at all. Apparently Nobodies <em>could<em> feel something, and that something was boredom. He didn't want to sleep; he wanted to know where Sora was, and what he was doing. But at the same time, he felt a weird — perhaps it was an obligation — to respect Aerith. And on top of that, Sora was behind her actions.

He'd taken to further examining the room around him. The design of the area was not like any world he had ever been to; it seemed to let off an elegant and prestigious aura. He had also noted the door that Aerith had entered from and the one that Cid had departed from; these were the front and the left, respectively. The left door led to some sort of hallway, and from across the hall he could see other doors, so he presumed he must be in some place with multiple rooms for inhabitants, whether it be a house or a hotel. He hadn't gotten a good look at the front door, but from what he could tell the room was mostly green, and was probably a counterpart with the one he was in. So it was just the right door that remained a mystery.

_Y'know, I really have no clue where I am,_ Axel thought, interestingly calm._ Actually, on second thought, I'd say that's a bit of an understatement. I don't know _who_ I am, _where_ I am, _or_ what's happening to me. Talk about clueless._

He was about to let out a frustrated sigh when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye — a movement.

"Somebody there?" Axel asked, sitting up slowly, the bed letting out an ominous creak as he did so.

"What? No way!" he heard a girl exclaim, and found the source of the voice in the corner of the room. It belonged to a teenage girl. She was wearing shorts that barely covered the top of her thighs (Axel almost felt perverted just for looking at her) as well as long socks that added an intriguing contrast. She'd hung her head immediately after speaking, causing the headband wrapped around her forehead to droop sadly. She groaned and then proceeded to mope.

Axel simply blinked a few times.

The girl sighed, and then finally looked back to him. She tilted her head in mimicry of Axel, and then bit her lip. "Sheesh, I don't know what everyone was all worried about. You look fine to me. Except for that silly look on your face."

Axel glared at her, taking a few moments to find his voice. "Wait a sec. You'recriticizing how _I'm _reacting here? When I just found some girl in the same room as me?"

"What's so weird about that? And fine, I'll leave."

And with that, she disappeared.

Axel found himself a little confused, for obvious reasons. He spent some time thinking about what possibly could have been going on with her, and was actually pleased to have something to think about besides wonder regarding Sora's whereabouts.

_What was she gonna do in here? A practical joke?_ Axel thought, raising an eyebrow as he did. _But_ _right in front of me? Who does she think she is, some kind of ninja?_

Axel turned to the wall behind him upon hearing a strange grumbling. After the grumbling continued, he realized there was a conversation going on in the room next door. Grunting to himself indifferently, he disregarded the voices, which weren't discernible from where he was sitting, until he heard a combination of sounds that sounded very similar to his name.

He stiffened, lifting an eyebrow and slowly getting up. A pain pulsed through his chest as he stood, so he held onto the bed as he shuffled across the wall from which he heard the sounds. He took in a deep breath as he tiptoed over, the pain still present.

"What about him?" he heard a voice he recognized as Aerith's say.

"I don't think we can trust 'im," a male said, whose voice he knew as Cid's. Axel straightened, leaning in closer.

"What? Why?" Aerith asked, her voice barely audible.

"It took the guy a whole friggin' minute to answer when I asked his damned name."

"That could be just because he wasn't feeling well, Cid…"

"Yeah, right, whenever _I'm_ not feelin' so hot I don't go and forget my _name_."

"Whenever _you're _not feeling well all we hear is swearing anyways," he heard the teen girl say, laughing.

"Watch it —"

"Anyways, Cid, I don't think you can say not to trust him just because of that."

"Well that's not it! I bet Yuffie he would notice if she snuck on in there, an' he did!" This exclamation was followed by a mischievous cackle. "That one's 1,000 munny in my pocket…" He heard the girl grunt with distaste.

"Anyways, it uh, means he's experienced with…" Cid trailed off. He remained silent for a few moments, apparently thinking (a feat Axel figured he must do approximately once a week). "Stealthiness! An' he's really interested in where Sora is! I think he's after him."

"Alright, alright, Cid. If you want us to be on the lookout, we'll be on the lookout, okay?"

"Darn right. That kid's trouble."

Axel's torso hurt all of a sudden, and he pressed his palm gently against it. It was a foreign, unfamiliar pain that felt nothing like the hunger that he knew. He sat down to try to better handle it, though he sensed that this would be pointless. The happiness from the knowledge of his heart had faded, and now this strange pain was taking over. But, despite the pain in his chest, thoughts were streaming through his head.

_They don't… trust me. Not that I really blame them, but… _He tried to comprehend as the pain worsened._ Is this… from the heart?_

He lied down, attempting to get the agony to fade, but it remained present, in spite of his best efforts.

_I don't get it… this… this is what I've been searching for… for all this time?_

* * *

><p>He was staring at the wall. Just staring and thinking.<p>

"Are you alright?" He was slightly shocked upon hearing her voice so suddenly, but he recovered quickly.

"Yeah," he said, meeting eyes with her.

He'd been thinking. And he'd made a decision. It went along the lines of: _They don't want me here? Fine. I'll just have to take myself off their hands. And I'll find Sora myself._

"You sure?" When he nodded, she added, "I made you something to eat, it's in the —"

"Look," Axel said, sitting up so that his legs were hanging off the bed, "I'd better get going."

"What? But you can't…"

"I've really… gotta go," he said insistently.

Before she could interrogate him further, he had stood up. Immediately he found that this was not a smart thing to do. The second his feet hit the ground he felt his body shut down. In the next few seconds, he was on his knees and she was over him. She was saying something but he couldn't discern it; his senses had gotten too blurry too quickly. He tried to ask what was happening but he wasn't sure what actually came out, and as she didn't respond, he had to assume that it hadn't come out as he intended. He heard her shout something, and someone else — a man he didn't recognize — appeared by her side, helping Axel back onto the bed.

As she shifted him around the bed a little, he heard the sound of her voice, and managed to distinguish the word "relax", but that was the extent of it and he was having difficulty doing so. There was a light, fuzzy fog over everything around him, and he could barely make out Aerith's brown hair as well as the other man's. Axel's surroundings had become glazed in a way that he had never seen before, in a way that made him wonder how others saw the world. But this wonder was overridden by the discomfort he was feeling.

Eventually, though it took several minutes, the haze began to fade away, and he could see the two of them more clearly. In addition, the sick feeling that his body had been enveloped in had degenerated at least to a point where he was able to comprehend what was going on around him. He breathed in, a look of pure shock on his face.

"What… the hell… was that?" he managed to get out, holding his head with one hand and his chest with the other and suppressing a groan.

"That was your heart rate dropping," she said, abruptly moving his hand and putting her head to his chest. Axel felt himself turn a little red as she listened. He looked away. After about a minute, she spoke. "It looks like it went back up for the most part… still a little slow…"

"Hey, where are you guys?" Axel heard a voice say from the other room. Gasping, he looked to the open door, searching for the source, all but pushing Aerith's head off of him.

"Sora, we're in here," Aerith said, having also looked to the door. Sora walked in, hands behind his head. He stood in the back near the brown-haired man.

"Oh, there you guys are." He seemed to notice Axel's stare right away, and waved a little shyly. "Hi."

"You're back?" Aerith said, looking fondly at him.

"Well, you know… I was still in the neighborhood, and er… Is he okay?"

At this point Axel tried to sit up again, but Aerith pushed him down, saying his name in different tones as he continually pushed in protest.

"No, he isn't doing well at all. Something's really wrong."

"Wha — really? What's… what's wrong?" Sora was looking at Axel now, but Axel wasn't looking back.

"He's just… his heart is causing him trouble."

_No lie there, _Axel thought crudely, grasping his chest a little harder as he felt the depressed beat.

"Really?" Sora said, frowning, still continuing to look at Axel, who wouldn't look back at him. "I'm sorry."

Axel sat silently for a few moments, fiddling with his hands, then shaking his head.

"Why do you do that?" he said under his breath.

"Huh?" Sora blinked.

"Nothing."

Now the entire group was silent, no one bothering to look at one another. The quiet was at last broken by Aerith, whose very hushed voice still managed to catch their attention.

"So, Axel… where is it you need to go? Maybe we should phone in and tell them you can't make it."

Axel's mouth dropped slightly. It hung suspended for several seconds.

"Axel? Is there anyone you want to call? Someone looking for you?" Axel said nothing.

"Don't you have any friends wondering where you are? Or family?" Sora interjected.

"Do you at least live around here?" Aerith tried again. Axel shook his head without looking at any of them. "You can't live too far…"

"That'd depend on what world this is," Axel said in a partial attempt to change the subject. He _was _wondering what world this was.

"You… you know about different worlds?" Sora repeated, seeming surprised. Axel still said nothing. "And you don't even know what world you're _in_? This is Traverse Town."

"Hm…" Axel made a face of contemplation. "Nope, never heard of that one."

"Then how did you get here? Could you have amnesia?" Aerith asked him, her face becoming bewildered.

"If I did, I wouldn't remember, now would I?" Axel responded, laughing at himself. Both Sora and Aerith had flinched, presumably surprised that he was laughing, probably due to the nature of the joke. "But it doesn't really matter anyway. Not sure where I'd go back to."

An uneasy silence followed, and it just about killed him.

_Stop _looking_ at me like that_, he wanted to say, _I don't want your pity_. _I don't _need_ your pity._ _I've always done just fine without it._

"Well…" Aerith spoke at last. "We'll… we'll just have to help you, then."

"Yeah," Sora quickly agreed, pointing a single thumb at his chest. "_We'll_ be your friends. You can count on us."

"I'm… I'm not really sure what to do to help, but… we'll do our best. I'm sure of it."

Axel was gaping at them both, simply staring. He'd never met strangers that would do such a thing. Naïve, he would have assumed, they would have to be to be so friendly toward him.

"Why?" Axel managed, almost choking. He bit his lip at the discovery that the word had come out sounding angry. He took in a deep breath and spoke again. "Why would you? What would you get outta helping me?"

Sora made a thoughtful face and then shrugged.

"I don't know," he said, putting his hands in the air. "But… sometimes I just like it… for the feeling, you know? It makes you feel… good."

He smiled at Axel, who still was looking blankly. Then, a few seconds later, Sora's eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers as if he'd made a sudden discovery. He looked just like Roxas. Roxas would always get excited and smile the same way.

"I've got it!" Sora exclaimed, grinning again. "Maybe Merlin can help him."

"Merlin?" Axel repeated, never having heard the name before aside from in myth.

"Yeah, he's this old wizard I know. I saw him again today… but maybe he'll know a spell or something that'll help you out. He knows a lot of stuff."

"Sounds like as good a suggestion as any," Aerith said approvingly. She then hesitated. "Axel, is that okay with you?"

"Uh, I… er… yeah, sure." Axel replied forcedly, scratching his cheek and neglecting to make eye contact.

"Great! I'll go get him tomorrow. Okay, Axel?"

_Like I've got any other choices_, Axel couldn't help thinking, but he nodded lowly.

With this, Aerith and the brown-haired man took their leave. This left Sora alone with Axel, though Axel was still avoiding all eye contact.

"Wait a second!" Sora exclaimed suddenly. "How did you know my name? Do you remember _me _from somewhere?"

"I… erm…" Axel paused indecisively. His face remained completely void of emotion as he responded. "Beats me. Now that you mention it, I don't remember you from anything I can think of."

"Oh," Sora said, looking disappointed.

"Pft, liar." The comment was heard and Cid stepped in, startling the two of them already in the room. Through the crunches of the toothpick in his mouth he said, "Sora, this guy's trouble. He's one of them who's trying to get you — that's 'ow he knows your name."

Axel clenched his fists, breathing becoming shallow.

"What's your _problem_?" Axel exclaimed, turning to Cid and glaring.

"I've seen your type before. You're a liar, _Axel_. If that even _is_ your name —"

"Well,as a matter of fact —" Sora was looking back and forth between them with a frightened look on his face.

"Sora, you can't trust this guy. Don't you think it's a bit suspicious that he's got no friends _or_ family?"

"That's _it_," Axel said darkly, standing up and summoning both of his chakrams. Again he felt his heart rate drop, gasping as both of his weapons disappeared instantly. He held onto the wall for support, pressing his other hand hard against his chest.

"Oh, looky here," Cid said, readying to kick Axel.

"Forget it! Stop!" Sora shouted, exasperated.

"Sora?" Aerith called upon hearing his cry. "Is everything okay?"

"They're fighting," he replied unhappily as she entered.

"What?" Aerith asked, frowning, "Axel, why aren't you lying down? I told you…"

"He's the enemy, Aerith! Stop tryin' to help —"

She shut him up with a few quiet words Axel couldn't make out. The older man stood there with his chin to the floor, his eye staring intently at the irked woman. Sora and Axel's mouths hung open, their jaws joining Cid's at the floor. Neither Aerith nor Cid said a word as she dragged him by his ear out of the room while he groaned in pain. After a short departure, Aerith returned, without Cid. Despite the display, Aerith seemed undisturbed.

"Axel, you need to sit down," she told him gently.

As she reached out to help him, he resisted, shaking his head slowly.

"No," Axel said. "Ya see, this is why I've gotta leave. You understand?"

"Oh, don't get worked up over Cid. He just wants to keep us all safe. We've been getting attacked a lot lately."

Upon seeing Axel's relentlessly dubious look, Sora butted in.

"I believe you," he said, noticing when Axel looked up. "I don't think you want any trouble."

"I believe you too," Aerith added eventually. Axel looked between the two of them.

"You must be crazy," Axel said quietly, letting out a subdued sigh as he sat back down on the bed, rubbing his head. Aerith and Sora seemed relieved, but also seemed not to have heard what he said.

Silently, he took in some deep breaths. Something just felt so different about all of it. When he looked at other people he felt sensations he didn't recognize: when he'd stood up to combat Cid he'd felt a rush in his chest; when he'd considered lying he'd felt a pressure in his lower abdomen, and when they'd been talking about him he'd felt a strange sort of nauseous. He thought at first that somehow the world had changed, that somehow the people around him were different, and he almost felt like it was true — but something else, something he couldn't quite discern, was telling him that it wasn't the world that changed, it was his perception of it; his view had been skewed for so many years by his heart's vacancy that, despite its return, he remained lost and confused still.

And suddenly, Axel wanted to go to bed.


	3. Allegiance

Sora left early the next morning, before Axel was even awake. He woke up a few hours later, and Aerith told him where Sora was, though he hadn't asked. Apparently she had detected his constant concern on the subject of Sora's whereabouts, and though she told him without obvious suspicion, he doubted all her thoughts were in favor of him. But, quite frankly, he didn't care as much what she thought — it was most important that Sora believed him, and the fact that he did resonated inside of him. Axel found himself caring less and less about what the others thought.

But he also felt a bit calmer. He thought that, perhaps, he was beginning to become accustomed to the organ beating in his chest.

"I'm sure he'll show up soon," Aerith said, even though Axel hadn't said anything.

"Hey! Are you rushing me?"

Both Axel and Aerith jumped at the sudden appearance of Sora's voice. They both looked around, and at last he appeared out of thin air with a man who had a long, white beard at his side. Sora was grinning.

"I was just waiting for the right time, sheesh."

"Oh, you're here," Aerith commented, smiling, looking to the older man. "And hello, Merlin. Nice to see you."

"Merlin, at your service," Merlin said, taking a stiff bow in the direction of the door, which was in the direction of no one in the room. He then seemed to realize his mistake, and began toying with his glasses, finally focusing on Axel. "Oh my, is this the young man?"

Axel's eyebrow went up in response to the suggestion of him being a "young man". Though he supposed he was young, relative to Merlin anyway, the way he'd said it triggered a glimmer of irritation in him, as if the man had implied that Axel's position as a "young man" made him inferior in some way. Axel was then reminded of Cid's similar implication in calling him "kid", and curled his mouth in contempt.

"Yeah," Sora answered, nodding.

"So, a heart problem, you say?" Merlin said, sitting on the bed beside Axel, who leaned away as Merlin sat down. He was wearing a robe that reached down to his ankles, and as he sat his calf became evident.

_Whoa there. Don't come any closer_, _gramps… _Axel thought, trying to keep his face blank.

Merlin was viewing him through a single eye of his glasses.

"Yes," Aerith agreed. "His heart seems to be having trouble keeping up with him."

"Hmmm," Merlin said, scratching the chin his beard sat upon. Within a few seconds, he'd whipped out the branch that served as his wand and shot a spell at Axel.

"Whoa!" Axel exclaimed, sputtering from the fire. "Hey, gramps! Have you flipped your lid?"

"Aha!" Merlin said extravagantly, jumping up. "I've never seen it before with my own eyes… this is truly intriguing… but I've found the problem."

"What? Really?" Sora asked, mouth agape. "That fast?"

"Yes," Merlin said, turning to them, but still holding his wand at Axel. "This man... is missing a large portion of his heart."

"'Scuse me?" Axel inquired, looking away from the threatening wood that remained pointed at him.

_So I finally get it back… and it's_ busted_?_ Maybe that was why he'd felt angry, he pondered.

"You're missing a portion of your heart," Merlin repeated, as if it was a commonplace thing to say. "But I must say, I'm quite impressed you've managed to recover any at all. Most Nobodies can't manage even a fragment."

"Excuse me, Merlin, but what are you talking about?" Aerith interjected, true confusion showing through her complexion.

"This man," Merlin said, clearing his throat and pointing at Axel again, "was a Nobody who has regained most of his heart."

"He's a… Nobody?" Sora repeated, his brow furrowing as he gazed at Axel, who looked away.

"Not exactly, my boy," Merlin replied, shaking his head. "_Was _a Nobody. He has regained parts of his heart, so he is what we call a Middlebody."

Axel was quickly getting sick of this old man telling them his life story.

"Okay, now, where exactly did the piece _go_?" Axel asked irritably.

"It must have been lost," Merlin answered vaguely.

"And just _where_ do you lose pieces of your heart? Do they go to the same dimension as, say, missing socks?"

"Not quite," Merlin remarked, grunting a little as if amused. "Socks disappear to Quadrant 23-F in the dimension space, while heart pieces remain in the same dimension. They simply are taken from person to person."

Axel just stared back blankly. Merlin didn't sound like he'd been kidding.

…_This nutjob actually knows where missing socks go? Who _is_ this kook?_

"So someone _stole _it?" Axel concluded in shock.

"No, no, no. Heart pieces are not taken intentionally — my, that would be disastrous. No, more often than not, they are taken without the thief's knowledge."

"So someone took it by accident?" Sora reasoned, scratching his head doubtfully.

"Precisely. Presumably someone who was very fond of him took a large chunk of his heart when they were separated."

"Whoa, wait a sec. But… what if…" Axel searched for words uncomfortably, clearing his throat. "They're gone?"

"Gone?" Merlin reiterated. He paused, seeming to consider the idea. "No. That would not be plausible. If the person who holds your heart were to disappear, the missing pieces of your heart would be returned to you."

"W-what?"

_Roxas_ — that was the only word, the only name that appeared in his mind. The only one.

He looked to Merlin.

"How do I get it back?" he asked.

"Get it back, you say? Well, I'm sorry to say that that's where my information falls a bit short."

"You don't _know_?" Axel said, his face falling.

"Well, the best thing I could suggest for you, my boy, is to find that which holds your heart."

"Pardon me, Merlin, but how is he supposed to do that?" Aerith interrupted. "He's in no condition to be running around on any account."

"Well, I do believe I have a spell that would reduce his symptoms, as a matter of fact. I can create an artificial heart piece."

"That's great!" Sora exclaimed, eyes brightening.

Axel glanced to him and then glanced down, rubbing the length of his neck.

"But that by no means will be the solution to the problem. An artificial piece is not nearly of the same value as a true heart piece. Additionally, if he were to search, he would need someone to supervise him —"

"Whoa whoa, hold up, gramps," Axel interrupted, "I'm a big boy. I don't need a babysitter."

"I'll go with you, Axel."

Axel's face was paralyzed again. Meeting Sora's eyes, Axel narrowed his eyebrows a little. Sora didn't respond, or seem even affected by his look, but continued to wear his resilient smile, the trademark smile that was all too familiar to Axel. He was waiting patiently for Axel to comment on his offer.

"Is that alright with you?" Merlin asked, presumably noticing the exchange of looks between Axel and Sora.

"W…" Axel hesitated, avoiding eyes again. "Yeah."

"Alrighty then, that's settled," Merlin said, sounding rather satisfied. He flipped out his wand then shook it a few times until a burst of light shot out of it, hitting Axel square in the chest. Axel felt the wind get knocked out of him as he gasped for air. "Sorry about that, my boy. But that should do it."

Merlin turned to Sora, tipping his hat, while Sora still watched Axel sputtering.

"I've done all I can. Consult me if needed, but I really must be going. Good day."

With that, he poofed into thin air, gone as quickly as he had appeared.

"Well, he certainly is interesting, isn't he?" Aerith said, lifting an eyebrow with a bit of a laugh.

"If by 'interesting,' you mean 'insane,'" Axel muttered, dropping his hand off of his chest as he still struggled to regain his breath.

"So, do you feel better now?" Sora asked almost excitedly.

Axel shrugged.

"Want to try to stand?" Aerith asked him, leaning over to meet his gaze. Axel responded with a sort of nod.

Hanging his legs off the bed briefly, he put his feet down and stood up. He suddenly gasped, bending over, clutching his chest and supporting himself the same way he had before, by clutching the wall hysterically.

"Whoa!" he heard Sora shout.

"Axel!" Aerith exclaimed, putting a hand on his back. "Are you okay? Do you need help?"

Axel groaned and then stood up straight, rolling his shoulders to stretch.

"Nah. I'm good." There was an eerie quiet that followed as he smiled.

"…Aw man, he got both of us!" Sora said, exasperatedly throwing his hands in the air.

"Very funny…" Aerith said, but Axel heard a smile on her lips.

"Heh, sorry," Axel said shrugging. The smile on his face wasn't as wide as it would typically have been following such a joke, but it still held steady. "I just couldn't help myself."

* * *

><p>Thankfully, Axel's joke had gone over well — he couldn't say so much for some previous jokes he'd tried in his past, though generally he had gotten away with it. He'd always liked to joke around, but his pranks had been more frequent when he was a teenager than during his time at the Organization because, one, without a heart they were quite a bit less amusing, and two, he didn't want to get turned into a Dusk for pushing a superior member over the edge.<p>

Still, he did joke with the other members on occasion, though his preferred victim was plainly Vexen. One of Axel's favorite pranks to pull on number four was to stand around a corner and melt everything the other member tried to freeze. The first time Axel did this was by far the most amusing; Vexen had begun running around screaming about how his magic had suddenly ceased to work and how he was too young to die. When he had approached the other members and tried to show them his problem, Axel had ceased melting the ice and successfully made the other member look like a total idiot. Thanks to this prank and many others, Vexen credited to Axel the affectionate title of "childish imbecile".

Anyway, regardless of failed and successful pranks of the past, he liked knowing that as of now he had a decent track record. The group of them had, after Merlin departed, collaborated that they would leave in the morning. Sora, being as outgoing as he is, was probably awake at the crack of dawn, already hyper and raring to go. Axel, on the other hand, was always one to sleep in, which was a privilege he was not allowed today.

"Hey, Axel," Sora slurred Axel's name as he shook his shoulder. "It's gooooo time!"

"Huh? Whoa, kid, how'd you —" Axel realized that Sora's weapon was, in fact, a keyblade, as he spoke, "The hell're you doing in here?"

"Uh, waking you up?" Sora said, scratching his head and turning a little red. Axel sighed. He pledged at this moment to definitely only change by the toilet, and laid his head back on the pillow.

"Look, you mind knocking first?"

"Oh, sorry," Sora said, looking embarrassed.

Axel didn't respond, sighing and closing his eyes.

"Hey, c'mon! It's goooo tiiiiime!" Sora said again, smiling wide and shaking Axel's shoulder.

"Yeah," Axel agreed, glancing to the clock and putting his pillow back on his head. "Time to _goooo_ back to _sleeeeep_."

Sora's tone darkened.

"You really don't want to go look for your own heart?" Axel quieted, grunting.

"Ah… Get out of here. I'm comin'."

"Oh-kay!" Sora said, hopping up and practically skipping out the door, which Axel closed behind him. He'd been told that his clothes were in the wardrobe in the right corner of the room, and sure enough, they were there. Even more conveniently, they sat directly behind a handwritten sign that designated them as "Axel's Clothes" (although Axel doubted there were anyone else's to confuse his with).

At this point Axel was a bit concerned at the late realization that if those were his clothes he must be wearing someone else's, but he pushed past this belated thought and concentrated on the task at hand. But he was still puzzled. Why? Well, because the clothes that lay there, the ones that the sign claimed to be his, were not clothes that he'd ever owned at any point in his life. He tilted his head, racking his brain for any recollection of these clothes, but he came up with nothing.

He finally bent down to examine the clothes. He started with the shirt, lifting it into his arms. It was tight in the waist and red, but as he ran his fingers over the stitching he found it felt like it had been delicately sewn. He put it on, afterwards realizing that he had already disobeyed his own pledge to only change by the toilet. He decided he'd make it quick.

On top of the shirt was a black jacket that discomfited him somewhat in its resemblance to the Organization's coats. He put it on anyway (though not until after looking at it with disdain); who knew if it would be cold out. His pants, he soon discovered, were tight, blue and denim. He tugged them up with zeal, but became confused when they began to slip down due to his thin waist.

To his relief, when he next reached in he found a much needed belt, its base a slight off-white. He tightened it, correcting the tightness as he bent down and felt it stab him in the gut. Finally, a pair of black gloves and a pair of black boots sat in the back of the dresser, and he grinned, slipping them both on. As he tied the final shoelace, he composed himself in front of the mirror beside the wardrobe.

_Not bad, _He thought, shrugging. Especially considering he could have ended up with no clothes at all.

Modeling himself a little in front of the mirror, his hand hit the pocket of his jeans, and he was shocked to find there was a lump inside of it. Pulling the mystery object out, Axel felt a grin form on his face. Jackpot! It was a munny pouch — and much more, it was full of munny. An awful lot of munny, too. He quickly counted it, and was surprised to find it totaled to a peculiar number. He had just over 20,000 stuffed in the small pouch, totaling exactly to be 21,052.

_Why that number?_ He wondered, lifting an eyebrow. _Well, whatever. I'm not complaining._

Before replacing the wallet, Axel stopped himself. He wondered if the money was even his. He didn't remember how much munny he'd had when he'd "died". There was an uncomfortable feeling forming in the pit of his stomach that was becoming familiar to him. Ignoring it, he replaced the pouch in his pocket. As he felt his opposite pocket, he found yet another treasure; this time several potions were present. Axel couldn't help but be impressed with his luck as he tossed the potions into a nearby drawer. A smile had appeared on his face as he considered his impeccable luck.

Now ready to go, Axel turned to close the wardrobe he'd opened when a reflection of light caught his eye. Curiously, he reached down to grab the object that sat just behind the "Axel's Clothes" label. Withdrawing it, he soon realized he'd found something very interesting: there, on a black string knotted to form a necklace, hung a shiny silver key.

* * *

><p>"So, ready to go now?" Sora asked, tapping his foot.<p>

"Yep," Axel replied, standing up from the couch in the primarily green room.

"Be careful, you guys," Aerith told them warningly.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of him," Sora said, giving her a thumbs up. Axel's shoulders tensed.

"Whoa, wait a sec. I'm not your pet. I don't need you to 'take care' of me. Got it memorized?"

"Hey, that's not what I meant."

"Let's go." Axel left before Sora even had a chance to respond. Sora called after Axel, waved a quick goodbye to Aerith, and then went after him. As Axel left the room, he found himself in a hotel hallway. All he knew about this world, aside from it being called Traverse Town and the buildings he'd seen before he'd collapsed, was that he'd been sleeping in a mainly red-colored room which sat beside a green-colored room that the others had hung out in as he slept in the red one. At this point, Axel searched for a door and found two at the very end of the hall. Axel didn't know where either led, and thus didn't know which one to open.

_Okay, folks, let's see what's behind door number one_, Axel thought, reaching out to grasp the first doorknob.

"Hey, _wait up_!" Axel dropped his hand from the doorknob.

Sora panted, trying to catch his breath. There was a long pause between them, when Sora spoke.

"So, uh, you have someone in mind?"

"Yeah," Axel said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Probably wouldn't be amnesia then, huh? So much for that," Sora said, smiling.

_Crap_, Axel thought. _That woulda been a good excuse… oh, well._

"Soooo, who is it? Is it a pretty girl?"

"Pft," Axel scoffed. "No. And I doubt he'd make for a very pretty one either."

"Oh," Sora said, looking to the floor, then back up. "What's he look like?"

"Blond. Blue eyes. About your age and size. Got it memorized?"

"Blond, blue eyes, my age and size. Got it," Sora said, nodding. "So, where do think he might be?"

_That's nothing short of a good question, kid_, Axel thought unhappily.

"We hung around Twilight Town a lot, I guess."

"Okay, let's look there first then."

Axel nodded, stretching. He held his right arm out, his palm wide, rolling his shoulders back and taking in a breath.

"Huh?" Axel blinked after several silent moments, looking to his outstretched arm. Sora was staring at him, blinking in bewilderment.

"Uh, what're you doing?"

_Ugh, wait, _Axel realized. _I'm a "Middlebody" now, right? Dark corridors would be a no-no. For crying out loud…_

"Ugh, nothing," he replied, dropping his arm.

"Well come _on_." Sora ran through the left door, and took him through a residential district. The floors were comprised of stone, and the large raised ramps they walked upon surrounded the lower ground. He'd glanced back to the door they'd left from and found that it read "Hotel" in large fluorescent yellow letters that were bordered by blue lights.

_Seems about right, _he reasoned, suspicions confirmed. His eyes wandered further yet and he found that just across the way, in the shadows to the left of the shops of the plaza, was where he had awoken. It was apparent to him that they were in the same world, as no light was coming through whatever clouded the skies above.

_Why here? _he thought. _That's the part that just doesn't make any sense. I'm never even _been _to this place. Weird._

Sora had stopped just before the end of district, and was waving him over, shouting for him to hurry up. Axel nodded, and walked in his direction while still glancing around. The area was obviously a shopping center. From here he could make out a dress and suit store, a book store, some sort of luggage institution and a large white building that appeared to be a shop but neglected to properly display its products.

Axel followed Sora around the corner and into the next entrance, one that led to another district, this time a bit smaller. He managed to spot a jewelry shop and a dining area before Sora dragged him in the direction of a different shop. Axel almost lost Sora when he disappeared around a corner and entered the shop he'd been waving at.

"Hey, Cid," Sora said, gesturing at the man behind the counter. Axel froze upon spotting the man, swearing under his breath in distaste.

"What was that, kid?" Cid growled at him.

"What is with you two? Can't you just be friends?" Sora said, scratching the back of his head. When neither of them replied, Sora shrugged, and guided Axel over to a yellow-green circle in the middle of the floor. Light was emanating from it in a way that Axel had never seen before.

"What…" Axel began to ask.

"It's the portal to the ship."

"Ship?" Axel repeated.

"Yeah. How do you get to other worlds?"

"Er," Axel looked to his right arm. He wished he could use the amnesia excuse. "It's kinda a long story. Real long."

"Well, you can tell me later. Step in." Axel did so, both of their bodies barely fitting in the capacity of the circle. The second he stepped in, floating buttons appeared in Sora's line of sight. Before Axel had a chance to read any of them, Sora had pressed one, and they teleported.

He didn't realize they'd teleported until he found himself in a place that most certainly wasn't the shop. He'd conveniently landed in a seat behind the dashboard of a ship; Sora was sitting next to him in another seat. Unlike some ships that Axel had seen, the controls appeared to be relatively simple; one joystick could be used to pilot the entire vehicle, and pressing a single button would cause it to fire a missile. Also, to his right a screen had popped up along with the face of what appeared to be a chipmunk with an oddly red nose. It had its hand — no, its paw — up to its forehead as if to signify that they were ready for launch. Sora nodded in the chipmunk's direction, and both smiled. Honestly Axel was a bit weirded out, but he made no reaction to the exchange.

"So, you like it?" Sora grinned at Axel as he fingered the ship's controls.

"Uh, sure. Simple enough," Axel replied, scanning the dashboard once again. He still didn't think the whole chipmunk launch pilot thing was normal, but he wasn't going to mention it.

"Cool. So, what do you say to… warp drive?" Sora asked mischievously, flicking a switch. Axel hadn't the chance to say a word before he felt the ship tilt them back due to whiplash from utter speed.

"We're heeere," Sora said, punching a blank-faced Axel in the shoulder.

_Who's the nut that designed this thing?_ Axel thought, open mouthed. He felt a little queasy, but in relativity to how he'd been feeling before he could definitely manage. _Man, is this an alternate reality, or is he just more nuts than I remember?_

They were no longer in the ship, but in yet another yellow-green circle. Axel recognized where they were after they left the covering they'd been standing beneath. They were on a side street in Twilight Town. If they went left they would be able to get to Station Heights, which if they followed the path would lead them to Station Plaza. Axel couldn't resist a feeling of brief nostalgia as his eyes scoured the yellow bricks that composed the stairs and the buildings of the world. He placed a hand on the wall that stood directly in front of them, running his pointer finger through the cracks that served as adhesive for the bricks.

"Let's go!" Sora almost sounded excited as he ran ahead.

"Hey! Sora!" Axel shouted after him, but neglected to move. A multitude of clouds littered the skyline, and he could make out the town's train in the distance, guiding its passengers along the tracks.

_It looks just like the last time we…_ Axel shook his head. _No_._ No, it doesn't_.

Breaking into a run, Axel jogged down the steps, finding Sora at the sandlot. He'd walked over to some kids already and was striking up a conversation.

"Hey! It's you guys!" Sora said, smiling.

"Hey, Sora, long time no see!" the blond kid said happily, punching him in the shoulder. He was greeted by the other two kids.

"So um, I'm kind of out looking for someone. Have you guys seen anyone with blond hair and blue eyes whose my age? Me and my buddy Axel are looking for him."

The blond kid blinked at Sora as Axel got closer. Then Axel recognized him, and he stopped just behind Sora.

_He's that kid. Friend of that other kid that helped Roxas and me in the sewer… when we were looking for…_ He paused as a brief pain shot through his chest. _…Wait, what _were_ we looking for?_

As he'd come closer it became apparent that none of these three kids remembered Axel, like Sora. All three of them had made glances in his direction and none had signaled even slightly that they recognized him. So Axel could reasonably assume that no one else he would run into would remember him.

_What could that mean… for Roxas? _Axel frowned at the thought.

"No, I haven't seen anyone that fits that description," the sewer-kid said, scratching his head. "What about you guys?"

"No one comes to mind for me, either," the lone girl of the group told them sadly.

"I've got nothin'," the blond kid said, shrugging. Sora turned to Axel.

"They haven't seen anyone. Sorry, Axel." Axel neglected to reply. "Hey, so, are you guys playing struggle?" Sora asked curiously, turning back to the three, apparently taking particular notice of the bats in their hands.

"Yep," the blond kid replied, slinging the bat over his shoulder. "We were just about to get started. Er, I mean, I was about to kick these guys' butts —"

"Oh, no you weren't!" the sewer-kid shouted as the blond kid laughed cockily.

_This kid…_ Axel thought, meeting eyes with the childish blond boy and then quickly looking away. _I feel like I… know him, or something._

"Man, I haven't played that in a while," Sora said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"What's that? Is that a challenge?" the blond kid shot in.

"Wha — no, no! But it does sound fun." Sora turned to Axel, who was no longer paying any attention. "Hey, have you ever played struggle?"

"Hm?" Axel glanced over. "Nah."

"Hey, why don't you guys give it a shot? It'll be a warm-up match for Sora," the sewer-kid said, pointing to Sora and then Axel, "and it'll be a teaching match for him."

Sora looked to Axel, unsure.

"What do you think? You probably want to keep looking. I mean, we haven't even _looked _anywhere. And do you think you could handle —" Sora cut himself off upon seeing Axel's face.

"Alright. I'll play your little game," Axel said, his eyes wandering to the bats and orbs the blond kid was holding.

"…If you're sure," Sora said, smiling. "Now, see, what you have to do is —"

"Yeah, yeah, I know. Lessee, hold the bat… then whack the other guy like there's no tomorrow. It's not that horribly complicated."

"I thought you said you've never played," the sewer-kid commented.

"And I haven't. But it's not _that_ hard to follow. I got it memorized after a few minutes."

"So you've seen it?" Sora concluded.

"You… you could say that. Anyway, let's get this show on the road, eh?"

They were suited up in a manner of minutes, both now wearing black vests with the collectable orbs attached to them. Axel was twirling the bat in his hands. Sora was eyeing him oddly, not in what struck Axel as a look of fear but rather as a look of pure curiosity.

_I'll just block him and make it end in a draw, _Axel decided immediately, smirking.

"Alright, ready guys?" the sewer-kid asked them. They both nodded. "Okay. Ready…"

"Set…" The blond kid added a lengthy pause apparently for dramatic effect. "Struggle!"

Sora charged immediately. The two of them began to spar rather uneventfully, despite the flurry of motion that was visible to their onlookers: no hits were landed, at all, in the first fifteen seconds of the match, and by the thirty second mark every hit had either been blocked or deflected. In order to make it look like he was truly putting forth an effort, by the forty second mark Axel landed some hits on Sora's limbs rather than aiming at any vital points, including the main skeleton. Axel found no problem in blocking Sora's hits, but began giving him a freebie or two to feign fatigue.

Axel's main strategy was and had been to keep tossing the bats in between his two hands and continuing to fight the younger boy off with whichever was most convenient for him, based on location. Despite the fact that none of the plastic orbs had been dropped onto the ground, Sora didn't seem to mind, and showed no signs of stress in light of the draw that seemed to be coming. Thus, within the first minute of the minute and a half long match, Sora had landed zero hits on Axel, but was still smiling whole-heartedly.

"Take… this!" Sora said dramatically, thrusting the bat forward and at last hitting Axel square in the chest.

If he said anything else, Axel couldn't hear him.


	4. Elusion

Opening his eyes, Axel found himself immersed in that terrible black again, the darkness. Immediately he yelped, scrambling to his feet, panicked. He swore in his head, insisting that, no, he was not, could not, be dead _again_. The thought pounded in his head, sounding like his heart had only moments ago — but was it beating now?

"Whoa, you're not dead. Don't get the wrong idea." Axel heard the voice again, and traced it to where Lea stood.

"You!" Axel growled.

"'You?' You're _still_ not convinced that I _am_ you?"

"Why am I here?" he demanded, ignoring the question. "What'd you do with…"

"How should I know? And if this is about the missing piece, I don't have it," Lea said, shrugging. "It's like that old wizard said. Someone else has it."

Axel's face furrowed at Lea's words.

"But _I_ never had one in the first place. How could someone take it from me?"

"Hey, don't look at me, I don't make the rules," Lea replied, placing his hands behind his head in an uncaring manner. Axel growled.

"What's your problem?" he shouted angrily. He didn't understand why he would give himself such a hard time, if they were the same.

"_My_ problem?" Lea repeated smugly. "You really think _I'm_ the one that has the problem?"

Axel's mouth just dropped open in response.

"Axel!"

And as his name was shouted, the black faded away.

"_Axel_!" Axel recognized Sora's voice as he opened his eyes for the second time. He sat up instinctively.

"Are you okay?" Sora asked, open-mouthed with worry. He stayed quiet for a little while, looking Axel over as he stood up. When Axel winced Sora cringed, adding, "I knew I shouldn't have let you —"

"_Let me_?" Axel repeated lowly, his face contorting into a frown as the words registered in his mind. "I told you. I'm not your pet. You don't _let me_ do anything. Get it _memorized_, already."

"I — sorry," Sora said, looking sadly to the ground. "Sorry."

"Whoa, wait a sec," the blond kid shot in. "You're mad at him for _worrying_ about you? Something wrong with your head, too?"

"I…" Axel began, cornered. He ran a gloved hand along his neck, standing silently for a brief while. He sighed. "I'm not mad, alright?"

There was an awkward silence that followed, that, though wordless, voiced skepticism. Axel swore he heard the blond boy scoff.

"Hey, wait a second!" the sewer-kid exclaimed suddenly. "You guys don't think they're looking for Seifer?"

"Oh, no, not Seifer," Sora made a look of disgust.

"Well, knowing his name would be helpful anyway. What is it?" the sewer-kid tried instead. The group looked to Axel expectantly.

Axel thought about it. No one in this dimension (or whatever-it-was) remembered him, so would they remember Roxas? Recognizing that he was taking quite a bit too long to tell them the name, he finally spat out:

"Ventus. But he goes by a lot of names."

_Ventus? _Axel thought, shocked as he heard what he had just said. The name had simply floated into his head, exiting via his mouth as if the two were directly connected. _I don't even know anyone with that name_.

_It … has a familiar ring to it, I guess, _he admitted. _But I don't know why or where from. I thought of Roxas, but I said Ventus. Pretty weird. But I guess I'd better stick with it. Roxas, you have officially been renamed Ventus. Got it memorized?_

"Ventus?" the sewer-kid repeated. "Can't say I've heard that name before."

"Same here."

"Me neither."

"Sorry, Axel," Sora apologized, staring at the ground. Axel felt a pain in his stomach, much like the one he'd felt after overhearing the others talking, but still not quite the same. At first he nearly yelled out in fear that his heart was failing again. But that wasn't it, he realized. It was the pain that had initiated when he'd considered the possibility that the munny in the pouch wasn't his. It felt familiar. This was something he'd felt before, long before the munny pouch issue. Probably back when he had a heart.

No, it was much too familiar to be from that far back, either. He continued to think about it, and, though it took him a bit, he at last distinguished what it was — guilt.

* * *

><p>Nothing. The two of them spent the entire day searching, poking their heads into shops and alleyways, and they'd come up with nothing. The sun had since begun its descent, and Sora's head was inclined downward as well, as if he were defeated. It was the way he'd been acting ever since the struggle incident. Axel was having trouble looking at him again.<p>

"I'm sorry, Axel," Sora said sadly, for probably the millionth-and-first time that day. "No one's seen him."

Guilt.

"'S not your fault. Don't stress it," Axel insisted.

"I know, but… I've lost my friends before… I just hope we find him."

Axel didn't respond to the statement. Drawing in a heavy breath, he said two words:

"Come on."

"Huh?" Sora said, surprised to find Axel tugging at his shirt sleeve.

"Come on," Axel said again. Sora complied, replying with a simplistic "okay". They had been standing at the side street where they had begun their search, and Axel was leading him down ramps. He finally stopped at the marketplace, dragging Sora further in to a shop that sat on the corner bordering the Sandlot and Tram Common. Axel strolled up to the shop, which bore a friendly logo of a light blue treat — a sea-salt ice cream. Sora was looking intently at the large logo as Axel leaned against the counter in front of the elderly lady shopkeeper.

"Hello, how may I help you?" she greeted, smiling. He recognized her, too, which meant she was yet another person who didn't remember him.

"Two sea-salt, puh-lease," Axel replied, unable to keep from a slight smile.

"That'll be 400 munny, sir," the lady totaled, putting the two bars on the counter.

"'Scuse me? _400 munny_? These used to be 100 each! What're you running here?"

"I'm sorry," she said, hanging her head in a sincerely apologetic fashion. "We've had to raise our prices… there used to be this group of kids that bought from us every day. But they've stopped coming, and we just can't keep it that low anymore."

_Ugh, more munny out of _my_ pocket… _

"Wonder what happened," Sora commented as Axel dug into his froze.

"Here," Axel said, putting the munny on the counter and grabbing his purchased ice cream, motioning to Sora that they were leaving.

"Thank y—" she gasped. "Wait, sir, you over-paid! By… quite a lot!"

"Hm? Did you hear something, Sora?" Axel replied, waving it off without turning back.

"Heh," Sora laughed, catching on. He placed a hand to his lips. "Nope, notta thing."

They left the area smiling, and he could barely make out a hushed whisper from the shopkeeper — "Thank you". As Axel turned the corner, he realized he was still holding both of the ice cream sticks.

"Oh, here," he said, holding it before Sora's face. "The icing on the cake."

"Wh — really? The… icing on the cake?" Sora's eyes widened.

"Mhm."

"Thanks!" Sora grasped it. He'd had a bewildered look on his face at first, but he was now smiling. He opened his mouth to lick it.

"Don't eat it yet. Come on."

"Now what?" Sora wondered aloud, taking the nearly licked ice cream away from his mouth.

"Follow me."

As Axel led the way to the tower, he couldn't help but imagine that _he_ would be there.

He would be there and everything would be fine; Axel would tell him how sorry he was for everything and then things could just go back to the way they were before — they could eat ice cream atop the tower every day without a care in the world. No Organizations and no personal mysteries to worry about, just the two of them enjoying their afternoon beneath the setting sun, ice cream in hand the whole while.

He knew it wasn't going to happen, but it was a strange feeling; it was one of those feelings that prevailed over everything else, one of those thoughts that caused him to completely ignore any judgments that might be more logically adept; it didn't matter that it wasn't probable, he still hoped. It was probably the only thing he had left, anyway.

And as he rounded the corner, Axel looked — and, of course, as Axel had both known but not expected, no one was there.

"Wow!" That was what Sora exclaimed as he took in the view at the clock tower for the first time. Just wow.

"Sit down," Axel said, patting the cement beside him, hiding his sorrow. Sora sat, still gaping at the sunset. Though he'd been obviously waiting impatiently to eat the ice cream, he now seemed to have forgotten about it, enthralled by the sights that could be seen from the place. Eventually, though it took a while, he licked the ice cream. He did so without removing his eyes from the skyline.

_Today makes three. Got it memorized… Roxas?_

"Wow, it's salty… but sweet, too." Axel glanced over.

"You know," he said, "you're the third person I know who said that."

"Really? It must be true then, I guess?" he concluded, grinning now.

_Third? _Axel thought, scrunching his brow. _I meant second. _

"So…" Sora began, finally moving on from the sunset. "Why'd you do this?"

"Do what?"

"Come on. You know." Axel sighed.

"Just think of it as… me saying sorry for… for… er…hm," Axel hesitated and then let out an exasperated shrug. "For just being a jerk in general, I guess."

"You're… apologizing?" Sora reasoned.

"Take it or leave it."

"I think I'll take it," Sora said, confidently. He then reverted to a more serious demeanor. "So, you don't hate me?"

Axel spat out a piece of ice cream that he'd just bitten off.

"I… no." he said quickly, wiping his mouth. "No."

"Well, that's a relief," Sora said, looking back to Axel, who wouldn't look back to him. "So uh… what's the key for?"

"Key?" Axel said, blinking.

"Yeah. The one around your neck?"

"Wha — oh, that." Axel wrapped his fingers around it, feeling the cold metal through his gloved palm as Sora waited. He'd forgotten about it.

He glanced down to it, twirling it amongst his fingers. He genuinely had no idea what the object could possibly be used for. There was nothing he owned that would need to be unlocked. In fact, he had nothing that even had a lock on it. So, he concluded, it most likely wasn't his; the possibility still remained that he had forgotten what it was for, but he found that unlikely, seeing as he remembered Sora and Roxas and the Organization. Despite knowing it probably wasn't his, though, he felt a bizarre compulsion to keep hold of it. It was as if the mystery of its existence had already become a driving force in his search for Roxas, as if it represented Axel's search for himself — no, not even that; it didn't only represent Axel himself. The key was the symbol of all of the Nobodies' lives, of everyone's — they all came about with no clear purpose, yet they still existed. The key was the mystery of life itself.

"Ya know, kid, you ask a lot of questions."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Well, you've got to be careful. Some people don't really go for that. Usually the people who prefer to do the question-asking themselves. And they like to tie you up while they're at it."

"Yeah. I think I've met people like that."

"Hm," Axel replied lamely, finally ceasing to twirl the key.

"You changed the subject."

"…Can't blame a guy for trying."

"Well if you don't want to tell me, you don't have to… but… we're… friends now, right?"

"…Right," Axel agreed.

The stomach pain had dulled.

* * *

><p>Much like his first flight in the gummi ship, Axel nearly hurled the second time around. To be honest, he didn't understand how Sora could stomach it, much less look so ready-to-go afterward. Perhaps it was something that just took getting used to. Or maybe Sora was just special.<p>

After arriving, and as if in a single bound, Sora was already at the hotel. Axel, now knowing his way around the town, wasn't as worried about keeping up with him, but was ceaselessly amazed at how unlimited Sora's energy seemed to be. He supposed that it was a merit of being a child. Like he needed another reason to miss being a child.

"Hello!" Sora called, knocking hard on the Green Room's door. When no one answered, he repeated himself and then barged in. "Is anyone here?"

"Oh, hey, Sora!" A girl's voice appeared from above them. Instinctively, Axel and Sora looked up, spotting the teen girl that had been in the Red Room with Axel the other day. She was hanging from a light fixture, and now dropped down to the floor.

_The hell's she doing up there? _Axel wondered. _Now this girl's just weird…_

"Oh, hi, Yuffie."

"Glad _you're_ here. It was getting soooo boring."

"Where is everyone?" Sora asked, eyeing the empty room.

"Well, Cid's at the shop and Aerith and Squall went down to the cavern." She went on to mockingly pucker her lips.

"Oh…"

"So, how'd it go? I take it you didn't find Hades's friend."

"Hades?" Axel repeated, blinking.

"Yeah, _you_. Your hair looks like it's on fire. I thought it was a pretty good name, considering Spiky is already taken."

"I've already got a name, you know — most people do. It's Axel. Got it memorized?"

"Pft, Axel, shmaxel. Would you rather be a part of a car or the god of the dead?" she replied, smirking. Axel was about to respond and say that the kind of "axel" she was referring to was spelled differently, with the "l", before the "e", but Sora spoke before he could. Axel did soon realize, however, that this was kind of a lame argument anyways, in that an "axel" (spelled the way he spelled it), was a figure skating trick, which he supposed most people probably wouldn't consider to be cooler than being part of a car.

"She's just playing, Axel," Sora assured, sensing some tension.

"I know," Axel said, sitting at the chair by the table, shrugging. He put his legs up. "Something's been up with my sense of humor… Normally I would have come up with some stupid name for _her_ by now, like short-shorts, but I guess I'm just not _feeling it_, you know? I digress."

It took Sora a few seconds to realize Axel was playing as well, but then he laughed.

"Short-shorts?" Sora said, still laughing.

"Short-shorts_?_" Yuffie repeated glumly. "_That's_ what you come up with?"

"Hades?_ That's_ what you come up with?" Axel mocked.

"I told you, Spiky was already taken!" she said exasperatedly.

"Why can't we just call everyone by their real names?" Sora interjected, still apparently finding amusement in the subject.

"She started it," Axel said, shrugging with a cocky smirk.

"Started what?" a deep voice interrupted, opening the door. After putting his legs down, Axel recognized him as the brown-haired man whose name he was unfamiliar with, but by logical deduction concluded was named Squall. Now able to get a better look at him, Axel surveyed his clothing (which was basically pants, a T-shirt and a fur jacket). Afterwards, Axel noted him to be rather muscular with a scar through the bridge of his nose and forehead. Next to him was Aerith.

_She looks really comfortable next to him, considering the big, menacing scar and all… He's got the "don't-do-anything-stupid-or-I'll-kill-you" look down, too. _

Axel himself wasn't concerned by either feature, however; he had probably about twenty centimeters on the guy and was pretty sure he'd be able to hold his own in a fight, his heart missing or not (and the earlier incident excluded).

"Oh nothing," Yuffie assured, shifting her eyes a little suspiciously. "Well, er, how was the cavern? Dark and depressing as always?"

"A little dark, yes," Aerith said, smiling. "But still nice. So, did everything go okay?"

"Well, um…" Sora's hesitation was blatant as he looked to Axel for approval. Without much thought, Axel was aware of what Sora was thinking about mentioning, and sighed.

"Yeah, everything went fine," Axel said, rolling his shoulders. "Blacked out for a little bit, no big deal. You know the dri —"

"Wait, what do you mean, 'blacked out'?" Aerith interrupted, clearly noticing his attempt to rush the information past her.

"It really wasn't a big deal," Sora defended. "He was only out, for like, a minute."

"He fainted, you're saying?" She replied to Sora, then turned to Axel, her eyes widening. "How can you say it's not a big deal? It's your _health_."

"I can't help but think I'm the one in a better position to make judgments about _my _health," Axel snapped a little (or a lot) rudely.

"Stop it," Sora said, probably feeling the same frustration he'd had when Axel was fighting with Cid. Yuffie and Squall's eyes met at this point, both acting misplaced and giving the other an identical look. Yuffie was kicking her legs on the small bed against the wall of the Green Room as if she were bored or nervous. Squall was standing still, leaning against the westernmost wall, but from his face looked almost as restless as Yuffie.

"I… I'm sorry," Aerith quickly apologized. "It's just, you know, Merlin told us to monitor his symptoms."

"…Alright," Axel said, taking in a deep breath. "I got hit, I fainted. Sora saw it. Consider the symptom monitored."

"You're not getting off that easy," Aerith pressed. "What'd you get hit by? Whatever caused it — that's what you need to watch out for."

"Not sure what caused it," Sora replied, "I didn't hit him very hard, so I don't think it was that…"

"_You_ hit him?" Aerith said, her eyes widening. "What were you two doing?"

"No, no, it wasn't like that. It was just a game."

"I'm not sure I'd like a game where you hit people…"

"No, but it was just with a little bat. With a foam tip. It's not like it hurts or anything. That's why at first I thought he was kidding."

"Aerith." Axel said her name for the first time. She looked a little surprised. "It _wasn't_ _him_, okay? It was a …coincidence."

"Well then _what happened_?" she tried again, desperately.

"Er… Look. It won't happen again." He said it certainly, but inside himself he was aware of the doubt. Axel had no idea what had caused it, and Lea, at least outwardly, seemed not to know either.

_I've really got no clue what it could be. It just seems… random. He hardly touched me. I mean, for Pete's sake… _Sighing after thinking for a little longer, he decided to give up. _If it's only happened once I can't really identify a pattern. Guess I'll have to… wait and see. _But for now, he settled, it was a coincidence.

At this point he questioned actually coming clean and telling them, but something was stopping him. There was something inside of him that was pushing him to stay quiet, to keep his encounters with Lea a secret. Axel found himself wondering if it was Lea — himself.

"How do you know that?" She looked at him curiously.

"I guess I don't," Axel admitted.

"Aerith, if it happens again, we'll come back. Okay? Just give him another chance."

"Well… alright. But please, Axel, don't fight. I just don't think it's a good idea."

"…Alright," Axel replied, but not entirely truthfully. It stung a little to say it because he wasn't sure he'd be able to avoid fighting completely during their searches. Though he would try to avoid any hostility, if he felt it truly necessary, he knew he would engage in it regardless of her warning.

"Thank you." Now it was a continuous sting.

"Well, I think I'm going to turn in," Axel said, standing up and stretching.

"What? It's so early!" Sora exclaimed.

"What can I say? Snooze-land is calling."

"Let him sleep, Sora," he heard her say as he closed the door behind him.

He knew that she probably just wanted him to rest, and honestly it annoyed him — he was fine, he'd been fine this entire time; he didn't need anyone to bother over him. But Axel found it very easy it ignore this annoyance. Sleep, after all, could protect from anything.

It was the greatest escape he had ever found.


	5. False Pretense

The next morning Axel awoke feeling a great deal more energized. Sora woke him at the same time as the previous day — around ten — so Axel was glad he got in the extra sleep. In relativity to his normal sleeping habits, ten o'clock was extremely early. His personal preference would have been more along the lines of noon or later. Preferably later.

"Did you get enough sleep?" Sora asked jokingly.

"Well, to be frank, I would've liked another three, four hours. Or twelve. But I guess I'll live."

Sora laughed at him, and Axel put forth a small smile.

"Hey, where do you want to look today?" Sora asked, getting down to business. "I think we covered Twilight Town pretty good."

"Didn't check the mansion," Axel said, as he realized it himself. It was weird. The building had just appeared in his mind, in all its glory, as if someone had just mentioned it to him. But no one had.

"The mansion? What mansion? Wait, the Old Mansion, you mean?"

"Yeah, that one. I didn't think of it till just now. But I guess… he might be there." It was as good a place to look as any.

"Sounds good to me," Sora said. "And you never know, maybe he showed up around town today."

They set off immediately. Sora, utilizing warp drive, landed them in Twilight Town once again, but this time they appeared at a different portal, the one at the Station Plaza. Oh, and today it was easily identifiable as the Station Plaza. People filled the bricked walkways, most of them streaming eastward, past the shops. Incomprehensible murmurs were audible from the many people standing about and chatting in the abundance of corners and hangouts. Some people were holding objects that Axel recognized as struggle bats, but in several different forms. One form he saw resembled a sword (the most common of the three), another a hammer, and the final a wand. Sora seemed as surprised as Axel did; apparently neither had ever seen the town so crowded.

"Whoa, what's going on?" Sora asked, noticing some guys holding struggle swords and laughing amongst themselves. "Is there an event or something?"

"Looks like it. It's like we're in an ocean of foam."

"There sure are a lot of people here. It's got to be a struggle competition or something. Maybe one of them has seen Ventus! Hey!" Sora called, jogging up to an approachable-looking group of kids about his age. "Hey, what's all this hype about? Is there a struggle competition?"

"Whoa, you haven't heard?" a tall brown-haired kid asserted. "Today's the struggle marathon competition. Five rounds of heavy struggle duels, man! And that's not including the prelims! Didn't you see the signs?"

"Signs?" Sora repeated, blinking. He glanced around the expanse, soon becoming aware that posters were indeed littered across the many walls of the town. He rubbed his neck in what was most likely embarrassment. Axel hadn't noticed any of the signs either, and felt similarly. "I just wasn't paying any attention, I guess."

"Well, you better get going if you want to sign up. Time's up in ten minutes!"

"Thanks for the heads up. Um, by the way, have you seen anyone with blond hair and blue eyes around here?"

"Hey, yeah!" the kid replied after a few seconds of thought. "There was this kid who went to the tournament over at the sandlot. I heard he got all the way to the finals last competition."

"Really? Thanks!" Sora smiled, leaving the group to talk to Axel, who had been standing about a meter away.

"Hey, Axel, those kids say they saw someone!"

Axel couldn't help but be doubtful, and neglected to give Sora a response.

"So, is Ventus good at struggle?"

At this Axel froze, hesitating.

"Actually, he wasn't bad," he admitted.

"Well, come on, let's go! We'll check out the mansion later, okay?"

"Er, yeah — hey, wait!" Axel sped up to a sprint, following Sora the best he could through the hordes of people headed to the sandlot. Sora was running excitedly, as Axel found he did often, and Axel couldn't avoid thinking it very kind of the younger boy.

When they reached the sandlot after a relatively short jog, Sora froze. Before them, standing at the center of the square lot, was a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy. He was smiling while holding a struggle bat in his two hands and was fiddling with it comfortably, speaking to some other kids around him. He was laughing genuinely, holding his chest when he wasn't flipping the bat over and over between his palms.

"Oh, that's Seifer."

Axel frowned.

"Darn…" Sora trailed off, and Axel felt that goddamn guilt fill him again. He ignored it.

"Hey! SORA!"

"Huh?" Sora and Axel wheeled around in unison. It was the kids from yesterday. "Oh, hi!"

"So, did you ever find your friend?" the sewer-kid asked them. Sora shook his head gloomily.

"Hey, so are you guys here to enter the tournament?" the blond boy butted in quickly.

"No, we were actually going to keep looking."

"Oh. Bummer."

"Do you want to?"

"What?" Sora inquired. Axel had asked it so quietly that he was surprised the younger boy even heard him.

"Well, erm," Axel continued a bit louder, clearing his throat. "If you want to, you can. We'll still have time to look around. No harm, no foul, right?"

"Wh… really?"

"Nah, I said that just to get your hopes up real high and then step on them," Axel said sarcastically. "_Yeah_, really."

"Thanks, Axel! I think it sounds fun. I think… I think I'll enter, then."

"Wait, so you guys are staying?" the zestful blond kid concluded, looking to Axel. "So, are you competing too?"

Axel saw Sora tense up out of the corner of his eye. Ignoring it, he rubbed the back of his neck, sighing.

"I think I'll sit this one out, actually."

"Well, okay. Suit yourself — you can hang out with Pence and Olette. They aren't competing either. You can form a no-fun squad over there on the bleachers."

Axel was so grateful to finally get some names to replace "sewer-kid" and "that girl" with that he completely ignored the boy's comment. Pence, he could recall now, was the other boy's name.

"Er, alright."

"Come on, Sora. You've got to get signed up!" the blond boy directed Sora to a stand about five meters from where the group had met. The stands for sign-up stood near where some benches normally would be sitting, though they'd apparently been moved for the event.

"Well, that's Hayner. Always in such a rush," Olette commented. Axel was even more pleased to find the final boy's name.

"No joke," Pence agreed. "Well, come on. Let's find seats."

Bleachers were set up around the whole lot where the battles would take place. Fortunately for the three of them, there were still seats that could be taken, even so close to the start of the event. There were eight sets of bleachers, two for each wall of the sandlot. The two sets closest to the sign-up stands seemed reserved for the competitors.

As a group, they comfortably moved to the southern bleachers, taking up space on the highest of the five elevated seating places.

"So, Axel, do you know how the competition works?" Pence asked him as they sat down, and Axel was reminded of his encounter with the kid in the sewer. He seemed to have a desire to please, from what Axel could conclude, even though he only remembered bits and pieces of their conversation down there. He still didn't remember why he and Roxas had been there in the first place.

"Oh, so there's more to it than beating the crud out of the other guy? Now I'm interested."

"Well, yeah. It actually revolves around your score. You could lose, but if you get a high enough score, you could still move on, potentially. Here, I'll explain," he said, removing a flyer from his pocket.

"There are five rounds, not including the preliminaries. The prelims are open, meaning _anyone_ — anyone — can sign up. These matches are only 30 seconds because there are bound to be a lot of them. Anyways, the top 100 best scorers move on to round one. Round one is made up of one minute matches, and the top 50 best scorers move on. Then, in round two, they fight three minute matches, and the top ten move on to the fourth round. In the fourth round — the matches are all three minutes long from here on out — there are only four people left already, so it's considered the semi-finals. Anyways, those are the final two matches, the top scorers — which are automatically going to be the guys that won — will move on to the fifth and final round. And of course… the final match is the final match!"

There was a pause between the three of them as Pence at last finished explaining, and Axel scratched his head.

"Yeah, I don't think I've quite got that memorized."

"Well, that's okay. I guess it's only important that the guys running the thing know how it works."

"Shh, guys, it's starting!" Olette pushed in, staring animatedly at the square, where two boys were standing across from each other, exchanging threatening but playful looks. Obediently, Pence and Axel shushed as a man stood in between the two of the boys on the floor, holding a blue flag the same color as the foam of the struggle bats. Axel's eyes widened a little at the sight of the blond-haired and blue-eyed boy that their search had ended up at.

"Match number one… Seifer versus Cecil!"

_So that's Seifer_, Axel thought as the brief fight began. _He must be the only blond and blue-eyed kid around if two people directed us to him. …Man, Roxas, where _are_ you?_

He felt a bit depressive after Roxas floated into his mind, and found himself ignoring everything that was going on around him, absorbed in the thoughts. Axel looked up only briefly when Seifer took the match with Cecil, and then grunted with distaste when he saw the blond kid kissing his bicep muscles.

"Oh, that Seifer! Always so arrogant!" Olette said, shifting in her seat uneasily.

Despite the fact that Olette and Pence were trying to talk to him throughout the fights, Axel found himself spacing out, mind now fixated on Roxas. Due to this, the matches flew by him, and he wasn't watching at all, though the entire crowd seemed still thoroughly engrossed, even by the 52nd match.

"Hey! There's Hayner!" Olette said, pointing down at the lot. Axel glanced up, noticing the now familiar blond kid in camouflage. He was smiling enthusiastically, waving to the crowd, and appeared to be up against a taller brown-haired kid that Axel recognized as the boy that Sora had approached asking about the event. Though he knew both of the kids, he still didn't care a bit about the outcome, and found himself scanning the bleachers across from them for Sora. Soon, their eyes met — Sora had been looking for him too. Sora grinned upon seeing him, and Axel nodded a little hesitantly, looking away.

Axel didn't look up again until he noticed Sora leave the bleacher, walking toward the center of the lot. He then looked up to the crowd and his eyes met with Axel's again; he'd apparently memorized where the group of them were sitting. He waved hopefully, grinning from ear to ear as he held the struggle bat, ready for the match to begin. Reluctantly, Axel forced a smile back, still gloomy from his incessant thoughts about Roxas; however, he managed to force his attention to Sora's match. His opponent had light blue hair that reminded Axel of Saïx.

"Match number 113… Sora versus Kain! Begin!"

Exactly as he had when dueling with Axel, Sora shot forward, stabbing as fast as he could. The blue-haired boy didn't bother to avoid the attack, which Axel was sincerely surprised by. Axel was sure that if the boy had simply bent backward he would've easily avoided the blow, but it was clear that Kain had no such intentions. Instead, letting out a holler, he charged back at Sora. The way his mouth was halfway open, his eyes narrowed in seriousness, again reminded Axel of Saïx. Axel frowned as the thought came to mind. Saïx had changed. They both had changed. Yet…

As Sora was put on the defensive, he quickly ducked from a powerful blow that he barely avoided. And the match was over. That was all. That was 30 seconds of struggle in its entirety. Sora was declared the winner, with just over 100 points (a very respectable score for a 30 second match).

At this point, Axel was getting pretty hungry. They'd eaten breakfast, but, regardless, whenever he glanced to Olette he couldn't help but picture the letters "m" and "e" floating in, transforming her name into "omelette".

_Man, I could go for an omelette,_ Axel thought, standing and readying to jump off the bleacher despite knowing he wasn't really permitted to go off on his own.

"Hey, where are you going?" Pence asked him.

"I'm only human, man. I gotta eat."

"Oh, you're getting food? Here, I'll come with you!" Pence stood up happily. "You want anything, Olette?"

"No, thanks."

Axel opened his mouth to protest Pence's accompaniment, but he felt a pain in his stomach again and he knew it wasn't from the hunger. Sighing, he said nothing, letting the ache fade. Jumping off the bleacher, he was followed by Pence.

To be honest, Axel wasn't sure where to get food in Twilight Town. He'd never actually eaten in the area, excluding the typical ice cream, and he'd never really bothered to look and see what the restaurants and stands had to offer. He and the rest of the Organization members usually stuck to the eating business back at The Castle That Never Was, after all.

"Hey, so, where do you get a bite around here?"

"Oh, well there are a lot of great places in Tram Common."

"Right." Based off of simple logic Axel would have concluded that the plaza was the place to go, but he still followed Pence. When they reached the lower area Pence's slower pace quickened greatly as he ventured from shop to shop. Axel surveyed the available food and frowned.

"What do you want to eat? I'd like any of these places."

"Er… I guess I could get a hot dog. Not the best thing for my health, but what can you do?"

"You're worried about your health? But you're so skinny!"

"'Scuse me?" Axel twitched at the comment. "Did it ever occur to you that it's _because_ I don't eat this stuff that I'm…"

Axel said the word "skinny" very quietly. He'd always considered himself fairly muscular, which wouldn't necessarily warrant the use of the word "skinny". He supposed some people considered anyone not overweight to be skinny, so thus he could be both muscular _and _skinny, but Axel sincerely doubted that was how the boy had meant it (he probably hadn't put that much thought into it, either). Pence aside, it'd gradually become apparent to him over a course of years that people generally considered him rather lanky.

Axel sighed. This was unlike him; typically he had no issues with confidences. He was forced to conclude that it must just be one of the outstanding "benefits" of possessing a heart.

_Damn it. Stop being such a prissy little girl, _Axel thought, frustrated with himself. _He's a fifteen-year-old kid. Seriously, who gives a rat's ass about his word choice?_

He could feel Pence's eyes piercing his back as he stood there, thinking of the younger boy's statement. The truth was, he really hadn't even been concerned for his health (he adored junk food), it just happened to be that hot dogs in particular didn't have a history of agreeing with him. But something about this vendor, or perhaps it was something about the smell, seemed so inviting that he just couldn't resist.

"Ugh. Screw it. I'm getting a hot dog."

And he did. He strolled right up to the stand and bought one, for a very cheap 75 munny. And, like he knew he would, he regretted the decision. While the hot dog was filling to his stomach, it made him feel sick almost immediately as it almost always did; however, the feeling of sick as a Middlebody was much more convincing than in a Nobody. He sat down at a cheap plastic chair that sat around a white plastic table, releasing a very slight groan. He placed his hand over his stomach and rubbed gently. It had been good while it had lasted, at least.

"Are you okay?" Pence asked. The younger boy had already inhaled two hot dogs and was starting on a third after only several minutes. Axel saw competitive eating as a potential career for the boy, something some people had told Axel himself that he should get into. Axel had become notorious at an early age for being able to down whatever was put in front of him without putting on a gram. Xigbar had even gone as far as to refer to him as "the black hole" (a name that was later revised to "the supernova", presumably to parallel Xigbar's other oft-used name for him, "flamsilocks", though Axel thought "the supernova" made it sound like he threw the food up after he ate it).

"I knew that was a bad idea," Axel replied, rubbing his temple. Hot dogs were one of the only things that, to this day, he couldn't stomach, which was one of the reasons competitive eating probably wouldn't have been the best choice for his career; the food was much too common in contests.

Axel turned his head, determined to preoccupy himself with something other than the ache. He concluded that people-watching would be a reasonable pastime. But, as his vision migrated, he saw something that was quite a great deal more interesting than the typical people strolling by carelessly. Yes, it was much more interesting: there, in the crowd that was flowing before them as Pence continued to disintegrate hot dogs, a black-coated boy was visible. Though Axel could only see the back of his head, the coat was instantly recognizable, and he knew it was _him_ walking through the crowd in the opposite direction. He was short, wearing the Organization's trademark black hood. He was walking right before the both of them.

_Roxas!_ he shouted in his head, any knowledge of his aching stomach now dissipating; he jumped up so quickly that Pence jumped himself.

"Hey, where are you going?" Axel didn't respond, but instead broke into a sprint.

"Later, kid!"

He heard Pence call again, but he was too busy chasing Roxas. It didn't take long before frustration filled him as he persistently shoved his way through the various mobs. He could barely make out the hood as Roxas continued walking, but he was going so fast that Axel couldn't comprehend that he would be walking. Axel had managed to block everything out except for himself and Roxas. He was there, and he was going to catch him.

"Roxas!"

Roxas disappeared for a moment after he went through the hole in the wall of the plaza that led to the woods. He was going to the mansion, Axel knew.

The pursuit became real once all the crowds were gone, and he could hear the grass rustling in response to Roxas's shoes. Roxas and Axel were weaving through the trees. Some of the trees had leaves that were beginning to change colors for the coming winter. It was something Axel had pondered as a child: why the leaves turned the most spectacular colors only before they died. He'd thought about it for a long time, but, aside from the scientific explanation, all he'd really come up with is that they might as well go out with a bang.

But Axel wasn't here to ponder such irrelevancies. He was here to find his friend, the friend that he was now so close to reaching. At last, a good feeling was forming in his chest, after all the awful ones he'd been enduring. It was warm. It was a pleasant feeling that he knew: he was happy. And Axel knew that this feeling, this one of happiness, was the one that made hearts worthwhile.

"ROXAS!"

Roxas was slowing down, and at last, he stopped.

He was different, no doubt. He was taller, with his build a little wider, similar to how Sora was now. He seemed so different Axel didn't even know how he still knew it was Roxas. But he did.

Axel stared at Roxas's back for a long time, waiting for him to turn around and talk to him. He couldn't help but feel a smile begin to form.

He could see it now. It would be like he'd pictured up on the tower: they'd talk, he'd apologize, and then everything could go back to the way it was. They could eat ice cream on the tower every day like they had always done. Like they always _will _do.

The wind was blowing slightly, and Axel saw Roxas's hood whip a little with the light breeze. He was so close. So close.

Then, at last, Roxas glanced over his shoulder, making eye contact with Axel. Axel's own green eyes brightened when he saw Roxas's intense blue irises. The familiar coloring again triggered the warm sensation in Axel's chest, yet, another side of him was irked — Roxas's presence felt oddly cold, and his gaze made it ever colder.

_His eyes… They look… different. _Axel thought, squinting his own eyes. He noted that the irises seemed brighter, but the eyes themselves were narrowed, obfuscating the brilliance. It was like they were passionate, but full of…

_Full of what?_

He paused, when, in a flash of black, Roxas was gone. That was all. He disappeared out of thin air in a millisecond, vanishing into a black mass — a dark corridor.

"Roxas!" Axel shouted out for the last time after seeing Roxas be consumed by the flare.

He was frozen stiff. Almost a minute passed before he managed to escape a single shouted whisper of "no". After that he began shaking, and he fell to his knees, his head in his hands. Panting, he repeated "no" over and over again, narrowly avoiding setting the grasses around him aflame. He sat there for a while, breathing heavily, and tried to calm himself down, but he was shaking against his will.

He no longer felt like he had any control over himself. It was like Roxas's sudden departure had forced him into some feeling of shock: he could see everything before him, but he felt strangely separate from it. It was like he was watching his own life unfold through the buffer of a screen or a window; he could see it all happening but couldn't interact with it. It almost didn't feel real.

But it _was_ real. Roxas had just disappeared right in front of him; he obviously had had nothing to say. But what Axel's thoughts kept streaming back to were his eyes, the look in those eyes. They scared him. They were blue, but they didn't look like Roxas's, at least not anymore. Those eyes, Axel was forced to think, were no longer Roxas.

And as Axel thought of those cruel, cold eyes that he no longer recognized, he accepted what he knew, what he'd known since they had first made eye contact: they, his eyes, were full of hate.

And then, out of the corner of his eye, Axel saw a leaf fall.


	6. Insoluble Regrets

"_You've just gotta trust me, Roxas."_

"…_I don't."_

"_Hey, c'mon..."_

"_If I can't get answers here, I'll get them somewhere else. Somebody __knows where I came from. That'll be the person I trust."_

"Axel!" The moment Axel entered the sandlot he'd been spotted. He correctly identified the voice as Sora's and made brief eye contact as the four teenagers ran over to him. "Axel, where'd you GO?"

No response. He'd been gone for a while. It'd taken him quite the amount of time to regain his composure from the encounter with Roxas; he'd needed a substantial break to get back into character. He couldn't afford for Sora to get suspicious. He just couldn't.

"_Hello_? Where'd you go? You're not supposed to leave without me! Did you faint again?"

"No," Axel said.

"…I don't believe you."

"Well, I'm not lying. Believe what you want."

"…You swear?"

"Yeah, sometimes." Sora paused.

"Oh, _ha ha_. I'm serious."

"Alright, alright. I swear," Axel replied, holding in a sigh.

"But come on… where'd you go?"

"I…" Axel started, scratching the back of his neck, feeling pressured by the four sets of eyes that were staring at him. "Let's just say we don't have to go to the mansion anymore, alright? False lead."

"Oh," Sora said. "Well, I guess if you're okay we don't have to go back to Traverse yet, either."

"Sweet," Axel replied gratefully. "Now, er, when is this thing supposed to, you know, wrap up?"

"It'll be over pretty soon," Pence interrupted. "It's down to the semi-finals. Sora just won his match. His opponent looked pretty scary, but not as scary as the guy who's fighting now. I hope he loses so Sora doesn't have to fight him."

"Semi-finals, huh? Pretty far in," Axel noted, watching the match that was taking place. Without them even pointing the "scary guy" out, Axel knew which they were speaking of. He wore a long, black coat with a collar that went over his head. Atop the collar of the coat, his head was also covered with a black beanie, and his face was even further covered with black bandages, the wrappings serving to conceal all but one eye. Observing the man's complete outfit, Axel concluded that he was showing no skin at all. A lump filled his chest.

"He's not that great," Hayner butted in, making an irritated face.

"You're just mad cause you lost in round three," Olette voiced for him.

"Am not!" Hayner shot back defiantly.

"The winner is… Blank!" When the flag man pointed to the tall man in black, all of them winced a little.

At this point, Sora was called over by the flag man and was directed to stand next to the man in black. Axel saw Sora's eyes trail down the man's body until the man's single eye looked back to him, at which point Sora straightened, looking forward again.

"We're down to our final match, folks!" the flag man narrated. "Blank versus Sora!"

Enthusiastic cheering erupted after he said this, and Axel heard various shouts from people expressing their opinions as to who they thought would be the victor. Sora and Blank were escorted to their opposing spots on the sandlot almost dramatically. As they were guided, Sora gave a passionate thumbs-up to his friends and then shot another into the crowd where he'd earned his fair share of fans. Blank made no movements at all aside from the soundless blinking of his single visible eye.

"Alright. Ready, set…" Much like Hayner had done with Axel and Sora the day before, the man provided a dramatic pause. "Struggle!"

Sora started out notably more cautious than he had with the other competitors upon seeing Blank stay still. The man had placed his two palms together and had closed his eye. Sora walked up slowly, holding the bat out in caution.

"Hey, what's the deal?" Axel heard someone shout, and several others expressed similar comments — until a blast of black matter shocked the crowd.

The black light had erupted from within the confines of Blank's clothing. Quickly it was clustering above the pile of clothes that now lay on the ground of the sandlot.

People were screaming before it appeared. People began screaming even more after it appeared. It was a Heartless, and one that Axel knew all too well: the long, gorilla-like arms with the clawed hands, the heart-shaped void in its chest, and the many crooked curls that stemmed from its bulky black body — the Heartless, "Blank" as he was called, was a Darkside. Sora was retreating, looking from the monstrous Heartless to his bat and back again, knowing that he would not be able to fight the creature with a measly foam sword. The Darkside lifted its arm up, preparing for the mighty blow that would take the keyblade master out for good.

Axel felt something light in him, a spark of instinct. Sora was the only thought that appeared in his mind, his only concern. Outstretching his arms, he felt the flames twirl around his wrists as his weapons appeared in his hands. Squeezing the handles hard, he bent his elbows, wound up for the throw, and thrust his chakrams as hard as he possibly could. The Darkside didn't know what hit it — it disappeared instantly, a large red heart floating away into the sky. Axel fell to his knees, instantly feeling the exhaustion from the energy it had cost him to one-hit KO the monstrous Heartless.

_Why would a Heartless be in the competition? Someone must have been controlling it; no Heartless would be able to do that on its own. But… who would do that? This must be what Aerith was talking about… Someone's after Sora. _All the thoughts had come pouring into his mind at once. _…Not goooood._

Everything around him had stopped. All the people who'd been fleeing were now looking back to the source of the weapons, eyes returning to Axel's keeled over body. Feeling discomfort from all the staring, he forced himself back to his feet, though he staggered, grasping onto the bleacher to steady himself.

"Axel…" Axel heard Sora say, followed by footsteps as the boy came over to him. Ignoring all the stares, Axel replied quietly.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, thanks to you." Axel's face flushed, but he didn't respond.

"AHEM!" the flag man interrupted them, finally breaking the silence. "Since the opponent was defeated by someone other than the competitor, he is automatically disqualified."

"WHAT?" someone from the crowd shouted. "Heartless aren't competitors!"

"Yeah! Give the kid the trophy!"

"Well… er…" the flag man hesitated. "As much as we'd like to, the competitor didn't win…"

"Make him fight _that_ guy then."

"Yeah, yeah!" the same guy from before agreed. "He's the one that beat the Heartless! Pit them against each other!"

The crowd whooped at this idea, and it was fine and dandy by Axel until he realized that he was "that guy". Looking crazily across the stands, he shook his head.

"That would be legal by our documented rules…" the flag man admitted. "What do you think, sir? You willing to fight this kid?"

Sora's eyes contacted with Axel's. Axel sensed fear in them; he was without a doubt worried about what might be the result if they were to duel again. As Axel turned to the crowd, he knew he wouldn't be able to get away with a simple, "Er, I'd rather not."

"Just give Sora the trophy!" Axel heard Hayner shout. "The guy obviously doesn't want to fight!"

"Yeah!" Pence and Olette agreed, and Axel was thankful for their intrusion.

"Here, kid," the flag-man said exasperatedly to Sora, "I'm done dealing with this. You win. Congrats."

Mild clapping could be heard throughout the stadium, mostly from people who simply seemed confused. They heard groans of dissatisfaction as people began leaving the stands, some expressing their disappointment about the result of the games, but most of them just seeming to be grateful that all had ended peacefully. Some people even came up to Axel, to his surprise, and thanked him sincerely for defeating the Heartless.

Honestly, it made Axel feel a little better — the fueling of his ego, that is. The encounter had definitely compensated, if only slightly, for the disappointing run-in with his friend. Though Axel wondered if he could even still call the boy his friend.

"Good job, Sora," Pence commented, "I can't believe you won."

"Me neither. This was a lot bigger than any struggle competition I'd ever been in," Sora said, smiling. At this point, Hayner announced that they had to go, and the trio departed with gleeful waves. Sora glanced down to his trophy, fingering the many shiny orbs that sat atop the curly decoration. Axel felt much better after a few minutes passed, and he was pleased that his breathing had nearly returned to normal. He was surprised that he had managed to use such a strong attack yet maintain his composure. Maybe he was getting better.

"Pretty snazzy, eh?" Axel commented, eyeballing the trophy.

"Yeah. It's cool…" Sora trailed off. "You ready to go? You want to look around some more?"

Axel's face went blank.

"Nah," he said after a while, ruffling the hair on the back of his neck, and looking away, "I don't think he's here."

"Oh… Well, you wanna go somewhere else? Another world?"

Axel didn't respond right away.

"Hey, you deserve a reward, don't you think? How about we grab some ice cream?"

"But I didn't look _at all_ today."

"Yeah," Axel acknowledged. "But you kicked some serious butt, right? Worthy of a treat in my book."

"Well… okay."

"Sheesh, finally. Only kid I know that I had to _talk into_ getting ice cream."

"Wow, thanks a lot, Axel," Sora said, following the words with a laugh. Upon seeing Sora laugh, Axel couldn't help but let out a subdued chuckle as they both headed towards the plaza.

* * *

><p>The feeling hadn't left yet. When he'd arrived at the tower again today, he'd still had a sliver of hope that Roxas would be there. It was about time that this feeling be relinquished, especially after the day's events, but Axel was holding onto it desperately.<p>

"_Have to hang onto something… right?"_

He looked into the sun directly._ Today makes four. Now, don't you worry… I've got the number memorized._

It was a stupid feeling, he thought, because it had already been made clear that same day that Roxas either didn't remember Axel or no longer liked him. Axel would have believed either. When he thought of the first he saw the face Roxas had made when Axel had asked what Xemnas's name was in the simulated Twilight Town, that terrible face that meant he was lying to him, that he really didn't remember a thing and had wanted to evoke some kind of phony reaction from Axel. Then when he thought of the latter he would hear Roxas saying "no one would miss me" over and over; it would echo in his mind, and it felt like a crime that he would never be able to redeem himself from; he should have done something, he should have stopped him before he was lost forever. It was all his fault, either way.

And that look Roxas had given him at the mansion. He wasn't sure how to interpret it, whether the look of hate was directed solely at Axel or the world itself. Either way, this too was Axel's fault.

There was no speech between the two of them for the first several minutes that they sat atop the clock tower. Axel was reminded in nearly every way of his time with Roxas, especially the first few days during which the only things that the two of them would say to one another were silly and aimless, if they said anything at all. While it didn't bother Axel much, Sora seemed a bit uneasy at the silence. Axel was distracted by thoughts about his encounter at the mansion, and was startled when Sora spoke.

"Axel… thanks a lot."

"Mhm?" Axel mumbled, holding the wooden stick with his tongue against his cheek.

"For protecting me, I guess. You feel okay, right?"

"Mhm-hm. Don't mention it."

"So… did you do this with Ventus?" Axel was caught off-guard by the nature of the question.

"What… makes you say that?"

"I don't know. It just feels like… you've done it before," he commented, then scratched his chin. "Actually, you know, it sort of feels like _I've_ done it before. Before yesterday, I mean. Weird, huh?"

"Yeah," Axel replied simply. "Yeah…"

_Roxas… who _are_ you? _Axel couldn't help but wonder.

"Hey, Sora… Bet you don't know why the sun sets red…" When Sora didn't respond, Axel continued. "Well, light's made up of lotsa colors, and outta all those colors, red's the one that travels the farthest."

Axel sat quietly, eagerly awaiting a response.

"You win."

"…What?"

"I _didn't_ know that."

"Oh," Axel replied quietly, stuffing the now ice cream-less popsicle stick in his pocket, his face contorting into a dejected frown as he surveyed the fading skyline.

The competition and the ice cream eating didn't take up nearly the whole day, so the sun remained up when they left the tower. Sora once again asked Axel if he wanted to continue to search, but Axel repeatedly insisted that he was not in the mood. Sora seemed confused by this, probably once again questioning Axel's will. Nevertheless, Sora didn't voice any opposition, and flew the two of them back to the First District.

They left the ship and it took very little time for them to reach the hotel, though they weren't in any rush at all. It's not like it was a very far trip.

Sora was gripping his trophy happily, practically skipping to the hotel room. After a quick knock, he swung the door open.

"Hey gu — Kairi?" he exclaimed in disbelief.

"Hi, Sora. You're early…"

Axel was in disbelief as well, and he impulsively stood completely still. He wasn't prepared for seeing _her _of all people. He hadn't thought of her once since he'd … arrived here, and now that thoughts of her were inescapable, the guilt-pain was already forming in his gut again. His eyes cascaded across her red hair, down to her shoes, and then away, the guilt transforming into a blend of remorse and embarrassment. From there, Axel noticed the entire crowd of people that were in the room: Leon was standing against the wall, Yuffie sitting on the bed, Aerith on one of the table chairs, and none other than the duo dog and duck were standing by the window.

"What are you doing here?" Sora asked, embracing her.

"Hey, what about us?" the duck questioned, crossing his arms.

"What are you _all _doing here?" Sora tried.

"Better," the duck commented.

"We were just wondering about you," Kairi said, smiling at him. "It's been days since you came home."

"But… where's Riku?" Sora asked, his face changing to a look of disappointment.

"I'm not sure," she said, shaking her head. "He's been pretty busy…"

"Oh…"

Axel moved slightly, reaching for the doorknob.

"Hey, you didn't even get introduced!" Sora exclaimed. "You're the reason I've been gone, even!"

An uncomfortable feeling was forming within Axel's body. He hesitated, hand still suspended above the doorknob hopefully.

"C'mon, please?"

Axel gave up, turning back, still not wanting to look at any of them.

"Hi," Kairi said, smiling at him and holding out her hand. "I'm Kairi."

"Axel," Axel replied, neglecting to use his tagline.

"Nice to meet you."

"You too," he replied lamely. He took her hand after she held it out, allowed her to do the shaking and then let his hand droop by his side.

"_He's _Donald," Sora continued, pointing to the duck, then to the dog. "And he's Goofy."

Axel automatically felt distaste swell within him, but he ignored it, waving an unenthusiastic hand in their direction.

Both Donald and Goofy greeted him. Axel looked to Sora, who was grinning, and frowned after seeing Axel's impatient face.

"Okay, _okay_… see you later."

Without a hint of hesitation, Axel took the opportunity to leave.

* * *

><p>Axel was anxious to find out if he had appeared as blatantly uncomfortable as he'd felt. He hoped they would attribute his actions to shyness rather than the regretful nervousness he'd truthfully endured. That said, though he'd departed eagerly, Axel didn't know what he was going to do in the room alone. He couldn't sleep, he knew; his mind was racing too quickly. Rocking back and forth, he scolded himself. He felt an instinctive dislike towards the dog and duck from his memories of them, but it wasn't them that were bothering his mind — it was both Roxas and Kairi.<p>

Their faces were the worst part. If he just thought about what he'd done completely in terms of language, with only words, it felt much less terrible than when he imagined their faces as well: if he thought, "I let Roxas leave, I didn't stop him, I didn't tell him who he was, when he had a right to know", it almost sounded reasonable, but when he saw Roxas's face it became arbitrary. The same thing would occur when he thought, "I kidnapped her, I was selfish, I didn't even apologize" — it seemed logical until he recalled her pleading face, helpless in his dark, foul presence, powerless when constricted by his cold, sinful hands.

Right now Axel thought he could honestly say that he'd never felt so helpless and so alone in his life, and that was saying something, because this was the first time, from what he could remember about his past lives, that Axel had ever really felt alone. He'd always had someone. Someonehad always been with him, in the same situation as him. There'd always been someone he could relate to. Before it had been Isa, then it had been Saïx, for a period, and then it had been now he had no one, and he was as helpless and alone as those he had done wrong against.

Falling onto his back, he rolled over, rubbing his temple slowly, shifting his legs uncomfortably as he lay.

"Axel? You awake?" Surprised to hear Sora's voice all of a sudden, Axel sat up abruptly. He then stood, tugging the door open.

"Uh… yeah?"

"Are you _sure_ you don't want to look some more today?"

"As… sure as the last time I told you."

"But…" Sora frowned. "Why not? Something… something happened when you went to the mansion, didn't it?"

Axel remained silent.

"Come on. You have a bad poker face."

_What? _Axel thought in disbelief, shocked out of his stupor. What a ridiculous statement. He was infamous for his lies. He'd gotten himself quite a reputation by his skillful usage of them. He'd returned from Castle Oblivion, had he not? Not to mention he'd won a hand or two with Luxord utilizing his supposedly "bad poker face".

Yet, as Axel considered these situations, he couldn't help but know that there was a difference between back then and now. He didn't have a heart then. His thoughts then drifted to the question that was at hand.

"_Axel_. Were you listen…"

"Yeah, I'm listening, I'm listening."

"Well, then…"

"I told you. It was a false lead. I went to the mansion, no one was there and all that."

"That's _it_?"

"Yup." Sora sighed.

"Well… okay. See you tomorrow, Axel."

Axel closed the door, and his surroundings were enveloped by the silence.

This wasn't going well, he couldn't help thinking: his encounter with Roxas had failed and the lies were beginning to pile on and on hopelessly. He felt like the only thing the heart had really made him capable of feeling was guilt, because, at the end of the day, that was the only feeling he had left — all of the others had long since fled, their stimuli effectively untraceable by virtue of their brevity.


	7. Temptation

Axel didn't sleep very well that night. He dreamed, though he couldn't remember what any of the dreams had been by the time he had sat himself up and looked to the clock. All he had after awakening was an uncomfortable and irritated feeling despite having forgotten what had made him feel this pain. He wasn't sure if it had been that way before he'd become a Nobody; he certainly couldn't recall such details; the distinctions between his Nobody self and his Somebody self before that only seemed interesting now that he had lost and regained them. It was bizarre to his previously emotionless mind, the fact that he could not know why he felt a certain way. As a Nobody he'd always figured it to be a very linear concept: he was sad, he felt sad, he was happy, he felt happy, and he would know it immediately. But he felt both a strange happiness and a strange remorse whenever he looked into Sora's eyes, and consequently he was forced to conclude that emotions were much more complicated than any of the Nobodies could have ever known.

That night Axel had gone to sleep much later than the time that had become his usual, and now he was already awake much earlier than he would have typically desired. In fact, when Sora knocked and walked in, Axel was already sitting on the Red Room's bed, ready to leave.

"Hey, you're up already…" Sora commented, obviously taken aback.

"Yeah," Axel said, standing up.

"You ready to go?"

"Mhm."

"Well uh… okay, I wasn't expecting that. Anyways, any place you uh… want to look?"

Rubbing his pant leg, Axel shrugged carelessly.

"Wherever. You know."

"What's _with_ you?" Sora pressed. Axel was standing hunched over, his eyes not visible, so Sora bent beneath him. Axel then walked backward, away from Sora, and sat down on the bed. Sora followed him in, closing the door. "Is everything okay? You're not talking very much. Ever since we got back yesterday."

"…So what?"

"It just doesn't seem like you."

"Like me?" Axel repeated very quietly.

_How would _he _know what's "like me"? _Axel thought, then answered his own question. _He wouldn't._ _And he doesn't._

"Can we just go?"

"You didn't pick anywhere yet!" Sora said, throwing up his hands.

"I don't care! Anywhere!" Axel yelled rashly. Sora looked up at him with his brow furrowed. Axel looked down quickly, running a hand harshly through his hair.

"Axel," Sora started, walking closer to him, "I thought… I thought we were friends now. You know. Friends tell each other what they're thinking."

_I know that_, Axel almost said.

"Yeah," Axel said lamely.

"That's all I get? A 'yeah'? Gee, thanks, Axel. Nice to know where I stand," Sora replied, curling his lip. "Okay, I get it. You don't want to tell me. Fine… now come on. We're going to Wonderland."

Sora had stood up already and was leaving without giving Axel any time to respond. Surprised, Axel stood back and followed Sora to the ship. He'd stomped off without a look back, and Axel had to jog a little to keep the boy in sight. As Axel was over thirty centimeters taller than Sora, however, it proved relatively easy for him to catch up; he had his large strides to thank for that.

After the two of them arrived in the Accessory Shop and eventually the ship, Sora hurriedly warp drove to Wonderland. In a flash, Axel and Sora appeared in a circular room connected to a hallway designated as the "rabbit hole".

_Why the hell do they call it that? _Axel thought immediately, surveying the area around him. _And since when do rabbits have checkered tiling in their holes?_

Axel had never been to this part of the world before. By the time the Organization had discovered the world, Axel had already been steadily searching for Riku, and the one time he'd actually been to the place it hadn't been here. Roxas, however, he knew to have been to the world many times for various reasons, but he'd never gone into explicit detail. Due to this, Axel was looking around the room curiously. It was simply a round room with a hallway attached and a door. When he tilted his head back, the center of the circular portion of the room housed a large opening, which he assumed to be the rabbit hole.

Sora had already walked to the door straightaway, running across the kaleidoscope-like floor and around the bend. Satisfied with his examination of the room, Axel followed closely as Sora opened the door. To his surprise, when Sora opened the door, another smaller door was within it, and an even smaller one within that. Bending down slightly, Sora slipped beneath and through the small doorway while Axel stood there blinking. He managed to get through after knocking his head on the doorframe twice on the way over and ducking considerably.

After grunting objectionably in response to the head banging, Axel rubbed the back of his head gingerly. Again taking in his surroundings, Axel realized they were within a tiny room with a table, a fireplace, and no apparent way to get out. As his eyes scanned the walls they met a very small door-like render on the northern wall. He lifted an eyebrow and glanced to Sora.

"Looks like a dead end," he commented.

"It's not. This is the Bizarre Room."

"Well, I'll give them that," Axel replied, noticing a steel lion head on the wall and henceforth raising an eyebrow.

"Here, drink this," Sora said, handing Axel what appeared to be a salt shaker. It had been sitting on the table.

"Drink it? So we're ignoring sanitation rules now? Who knows how long it's _been_ there—"

"Just drink it," Sora said, voice deflating as he frowned.

The words were still being processed in Axel's mind as Sora drank from the shaker. With a puff of smoke, to Axel's amazement, Sora had shrunk to the size of a toothpick. Staring intently, Axel was stunned for several seconds. Sora's tiny toothpick face then gave him a look, and Axel drank it as well.

It tasted salty. That was it. He tasted salt, and then he was to the same scale as Sora. Examining his tiny body, he glanced down. He raised an eyebrow yet again.

_Can't say I envy ants, man. I think I'll stick with the ever-present "bigger is better" philosophy for… things like this._

"So, what now, key—"

The appearance of Heartless interrupted his sentence. Out of habit, both Sora and Axel beckoned their weapons.

"Axel, don't. I can handle them," Sora scolded harshly as Axel began to protest. Instead, he vanquished his chakrams and hung his head.

While he couldn't help but feel an emptiness, Sora seemed to be holding up his end of the fight very well on his own. Whenever Sapphire Elegies would swarm him, he'd hold a steady guard, stunning them, and then with one or two whacks they'd be toast. In addition, he had no trouble eliminating the populous Grey Caprices and the occasional Fire Plant. When the last Heartless was slain, Sora relinquished his keyblade, seeming to not have any repercussions.

"Wow, Sora. Fight fight fight," Axel muttered to himself, still hosting the empty feeling.

Sora appeared to scoff, and walked in the direction of the opening in the far corner.

"Hey, Sora," Axel began, catching up. "Are you… uh… mad or something?"

His companion slouched in response.

"I'm not _mad_…" Sora replied.

"Look, uh…" Axel let an awkward pause fill the air. "How about I take you out for some ice cream after we're done here. Alright?"

"Okay," Sora agreed eventually, to Axel's relief. He stood still for a bit, and then added, "Is this you apologizing for just 'being a jerk in general' again?"

"You could say that," Axel said, letting out a small laugh.

"You could just, you know, say you're sorry. It'd be easier."

"Well, getting ice cream is tastier." Sora laughed feebly.

"Come on, Axel. Let's go."

As a pair now, they both left through the large opening in the northern wall. The hole led to an expanse of finely ordered hedges, with northern, western, and eastern passages. To Axel all of the holes looked eerily similar.

"So, which way you want to go?" Sora asked, turning to Axel.

"Er… the right?" Axel responded hesitantly. He knew no basis on which he could deduce that one direction would be better than the other, unless, of course, he let himself fall victim to superstition.

"Oh. Okay. Into the maze we go!" Running to the opening, Sora disappeared behind the dark green leaves.

_What does he mean by…_

Upon entering, Axel froze. It was a hedge maze. As he looked quickly from left to right he could see nothing but green, the color of the leaves of the many hedges. He stood awestruck for several moments, wondering if Roxas would truly have decided to take on such an enormous maze for the Organization, much less hang around in it on his own time. Letting in a fulfilling breath, Axel spotted one of Sora's large brown spikes and sprinted after it, hoping to catch him before he lost sight of it again.

"I hope you know where you're —"

Yet again Axel was cut off by the abrupt appearance of Heartless. These were of a like variety to those that they'd seen before; Axel was beginning to think that Wonderland was a land inhabited primarily by airborne Heartless. Again, Sora's enemies were Sapphire Elegies and Grey Caprices, but a new addition was the Pink Concerto. From the instant the Heartless had appeared Sora had begun hacking away at them. Axel had managed to hold himself back, though he couldn't resist flexing his fingers apprehensively as he attempted to suppress his intuition. Cracking his knuckles and grinding his teeth, he stood behind a hedge, refusing to look back at Sora as he heard each Heartless, one-by-one, be taken out.

"Come on, let's keep going," Sora said as soon as he was finished, waving Axel along. Sighing to himself, Axel stood up straighter, following at a bit of a distance.

From there the searching dragged on. It was all the same. They would round another corner, no one would be there, Sora would take out some Heartless, and Axel would have to watch, a burden on the party.

They came out from a hole in the maze into another, seemingly separate maze. Axel was about to groan until he spotted something yellow out of the corner of his eye. To Axel's astonishment, the yellow was the color of the scleras of a cat, and if that wasn't strange enough, the cat itself was pink and purple and was staring back at Axel with a devilish grin. Axel couldn't help but stare at it for a few moments.

He would have been lying if he were to say he wasn't creeped out at all by the cat's odd attributes. He wouldn't say there was one characteristic in particular that made the cat disturbing, but it was rather that its features were strange when paired with the others: for example, its pink and purple coloring almost seemed to make it seem cute and appealing, but at the same time it bore a maniacal grin with those unsettling off-color eyes. Anyways, Axel couldn't just let such an oddity go unmentioned.

"Hey — hey, Sora. Get a load of this," Axel whispered, nudging Sora before he could walk off in the opposite direction. Sora stopped, tilting his head as he stared back at the cat.

"It's quite impolite to stare, you know," the cat said. Axel nearly fell over.

"Wait, I remember you! You helped us clear Alice's name!" Sora exclaimed, eyes brightening as he turned to see the cat.

"Did I, or didn't I?" the cat said, maintaining its evil grin.

"…Sort of," Sora said, scratching his head.

_He knows the _cat _too? This is ridiculous —_

"Look, we're kind of searching for someone. We're wondering if you've seen him. He's got blond hair and blue eyes and is my height," Sora said, getting down to business.

"Perhaps I have… or perhaps I haven't. It's really up to you," the cat commented, turning its head upside-down creepily. The decapitated skull floated apart from its body, and Axel jumped back.

As the cat's words finally registered in his mind, Axel raised an eyebrow. "Whoa, wait a sec. That doesn't make any sense. You've either seen him or you haven't. It's a matter of fact or fiction —"

"Then the question is — who is speaking fact: you, or I? Who is speaking fiction: I, or you?"

Axel ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

"This is nuts. I'm not gonna argue with a cat —"

"A _Cheshire_ cat," the cat corrected, balancing its head on its left paw.

"— _Any _kind of cat. Especially one that can detach and reattach its head as it pleases."

"Hold on, Axel," Sora said, pulling Axel's hair so that his head was low enough for Sora to talk into his ear. This required a substantial amount of bending for Axel. "He was really helpful before. He still might be useful."

Axel gave him an estranged look, but stood silently as Sora took over.

"Cheshire cat… if you don't know where he is, do you know anyone who would?"

"Can you _disappear_?" the cat asked randomly, its body vanishing as it asked. Sora put a hand to his forehead and looked to Axel. "Although, if it were _I_ searching for a boy, I would ask the Queen. But beware! She's rather mad."

"The Queen? No way am I going to ask _her_!" Sora exclaimed, making a revolted face. He turned to Axel. "She really _is _mad."

"We all are. Mad mad mad… long live Wonderland!" the cat said, then disappeared, its head rotating apart from its body until it vanished completely.

_That was real helpful. More like a distraction, _Axel thought, a bit annoyed by the diversion despite knowing he'd (albeit unintentionally) initiated it. It's not like he'd expected the cat to start _talking_.

"I swear," Sora pleaded, "it was a lot more helpful when we were helping this girl…"

"Yeah, sure —" Axel teased.

"— It was!"

They both began to walk again, Axel following Sora through the confusing labyrinth of twists and turns. An occasional Heartless would pop up and Sora would take it out effortlessly — the usual. Every wall was the same familiar pattern of trimmed bushes, some with hearts or other card-related symbols cut out of them to form convenient peeking holes for the purpose of (Axel assumed) cheating at the maze. He only wished there were more.

_Man, I'm glad Sora's keeping track of where we are. I probably would have burned the place down by now, _Axel thought, respect for the boy only increasing.

"Hey, what's this do?" Sora asked after a while, bending over a button sticking out of the floor. Axel shrugged in response. Grinning, Sora said, "What's the worst that could happen?"

Flicking the button, he stood up, glancing around the area.

"Huh. Nothing at all," Sora said, tilting his head as he looked back to the button. "Must be bust —"

The shadow came from beneath him. Axel saw it before Sora did; it snuck underneath the boy without a sound, so quickly that both Axel and Sora weren't given the privilege of time to react. Axel shouted Sora's name as soon as he could find the word, but it was too late — Sora had already been knocked into the air by the gigantic Heartless that he knew to be a Novashadow. The shadow was gone as fast as it had appeared, leaving Sora's body lying across the grass beside the switch. Sprinting over, Axel kneeled over Sora, panting.

"Sora," Axel said, shaking Sora's shoulder, but to no avail. Out of the corner of his eye, Axel saw the Novashadow. Filled by a flame, Axel wheeled around, eyes fixated on it, as he drew his craved chakrams. But then it was under him — and he'd been hit too. "Argh!"

The shadow disappeared again as Axel pulled himself onto his knees, trying to catch his breath. The second he spotted it, he thrust his weapons, though the shadow was too speedy; his chakrams just wound around and returned back to him instead of contacting with the enemy. Again, with undeniable swiftness, it appeared beneath him and struck him, causing him to roll across the room.

_I can't… _Axel admitted to himself weakly. _The limit's the only chance I've got._

"Arghhhhh!" he shouted with all his might, feeling as well as seeing the flames envelop him and the Novashadow. He kept the flames burning as hard as he could, fueling them with all the fire that his broken heart could muster. When he'd used all the energy he could bear, he felt the force on his knees, and he fell to the floor. His breathing was extremely heavy now, and he lay on the ground, unable to pick himself back up. Winded, he strained out a few more breaths, forcing himself onto an elbow. To his shock, he still saw the Novashadow.

A lot of thoughts pulsed through his head at this point, mainly _uh-oh _and _crap_, but they were overridden as a sizzle was heard, and the Novashadow disappeared, releasing a hefty red heart into the air. Partially from the relief and partially from the exhaustion, Axel collapsed back onto his stomach.

It took several minutes for him to accumulate enough energy to crawl over to Sora and look him over. Axel shook him a few times. Sora didn't awaken.

_Eh, he looks alright. But you never know. I'd better… I'd better take him back, _Axel decided, biting his lip.

Taking a look around, Axel took a bit more time to catch his breath. When he finally slew Sora over his shoulder, he was still seriously fatigued, but he knew they had to get out of there before something worse happened. A glimmer caught his eye as he lifted Sora higher onto his back, and he tilted his head to the side, spotting its source.

Blinking a few times, Axel confirmed that what he saw before him he was not imagining: Sora's keyblade had apparently neglected to disappear when he'd been knocked unconscious, as it lay there in the grass directly in front of him.

Lifting the blade, Axel stopped himself.

_Roxas,_ he thought, glancing to Sora, flipping it over and examining its gleaming head.

It would be so easy. So very easy. The extractor was already in his hand, and Sora was laying there, out cold.

It would be _so very easy_ indeed.


	8. Sinful Hero

To my reviewer: I've responded on my profile.

* * *

><p>The blade disappeared the moment he thrust it to the ground.<p>

_Roxas is alive. Don't be… stupid._

Shoving himself forward, he trudged through the maze.

He was lost. He'd been walking for what felt like hours now, but he wasn't sure if that was due to his physical state or not. For some reason, in contrast with the earlier encounter with the Darkside in Twilight Town, Axel was still exhausted even after some time had passed. He was forced to conclude that it was the fact that this Heartless had managed to strike him (though, despite the exhaustion, he was a tad pleased to know that Sora striking him with the struggle bat probably wasn't what caused him to faint, as he'd been hit much harder just now). Still, he was surprised that the blows had managed to take such a lasting toll on him, especially after just the previous day he had recovered so quickly.

Exhaustion aside, up until this point he'd been extremely lucky — he hadn't run into a single Heartless during his desperate search for the exit. His panting had slowed, but he still emanated tiredness. Shrugging it off once more, he stuck his head above the hedges and at last spotted an opening. He didn't know if the opening was to another room or the exit, but, either way, at least he was getting somewhere. Reaching the door, he bolted through it as if he weren't ready to collapse.

He groaned. The doorway had led to another hedge maze that seemed to be nearly identical to the one he'd just departed from.

_I give. Time to take a little… shortcut._ Axel thought as, slowly and regretfully, he let the flames twirl around his palms in rhythm with his breathing.

"Flames can burn the way through this maze… or flames can make you more lost than before. It's your choice."

Axel let the fire burn out, breathing heavily as he turned to face the cat, choking out, "And I suppose _you _have any other suggestions?"

"Suggestions for what? Suggestions for whom?"

"I want to get out of here," Axel continued hoarsely.

"Out of where? And to where? Some go that way, some go this way."

"Well, as much as I'd love to chat, I've got places to be," Axel said, still panting in between words. He turned away, adjusting Sora on his shoulder.

"If you'd really like to know," the cat continued. "Let your heart guide you… Or don't. It's all up to you."

Axel grunted again. He began to walk, then turned back to face the cat, just to find it had disappeared yet again.

_I've had enough of that cat already. "Let your heart guide you," _Axel thought mockingly. _Maybe that would be good advice… if mine were any good._

He marched forward, scanning the area and grumbling once more in annoyance. There were four directions he could possibly go; all of the typical ways, forward, backward, to the left or to the right. None looked all too appealing. Scratching his head, he stood suddenly still.

To the left there was a bush, just like all the others — but not like all the others. This one had a symbol carved into it, and the symbol was none other than a heart.

_Let your heart guide you._

Breaking into a sprint, Axel rounded the left corner, charging through the leaf-filled doorway and back into the light of the walkway.

And there he was, in the same area they'd been in when making the initial decision as to which way to go. Axel let in a breath of pure happiness. Then he realized he didn't know which opening would lead him to the Bizarre Room. He swore, trying to remember which way they'd gone. Unable to figure it out, he glanced left and right, then stopped himself.

Turning to the right, Axel shifted Sora on his shoulder, ready to leave — when he was hit. This must have been what it was like for Sora. He'd been hit so quickly and so suddenly that he wasn't even conscious of the blow until he was on the ground, though, in Sora's case, unconscious. Eyes widening, Axel began to panic. There it was, yet another Novashadow (or, perhaps, the same one that had simply materialized once more; its heart hadn't been collected, after all), blocking the door he was going to depart from. When Axel had been hit, Sora had fallen to the ground, and now he threw the boy over his shoulder again. He glanced between the two doorways.

_This is no time to be picky! _he thought, sprinting in the direction opposite to the Heartless. Unfortunately, the Novashadow followed suit, now blocking the other door he'd wanted to escape to.

Axel knew already what he had to do. He hadn't stood a chance before, the incomplete heart partly to blame, and now with the added on exhaustion he knew he most definitely wouldn't be able to take the Heartless out. Yes. It was time for another limit break. He bent backwards, quickly, and did it exactly as he had before. He wasn't able to keep up the flames for as long as he had previously, but, regardless, it did the job. The Novashadow disappeared, but not without having taken the last bit of his energy save for one tiny speck.

There was no time for breaks now. He was leaving. He didn't remember which door he'd come from due to the shuffle from the battle, so he took a chance. He ran straight ahead, to the door he was facing. And he got lucky once again. There, right before him as he entered, was a portal.

* * *

><p>Axel pounded on the door to the Green Room as hard as he could, still panting noticeably. The door was opened, to his relief, but it was not who he was hoping to see within the room: the only ones in there were Donald, Goofy, and Kairi. Kairi had opened the door, and the dog and duck were standing near the window. No, Kairi was not who he'd been hoping for it all.<p>

"Oh my… are you… is he okay?" Kairi asked as soon as she spotted Sora hanging over Axel's shoulder. Coughing, Axel walked over to the bed, placing Sora down gently atop it as Kairi followed worriedly.

"Sora?" Donald and Goofy both exclaimed, jumping over. Axel sat down on the chair, still silent, breathing heavy.

"What'd you _do _to him?" Donald asked, glaring at Axel and withdrawing his wand. "Why I oughta!"

"'Scuse… me?" Axel managed, glaring. "What did _I_ do? It was… ugh… Heartless."

"How do I know you're not lying?" the duck asked accusingly.

"How do you… know I am?" Axel coughed again. He let in a sharp breath. "Besides, _genius,_ why would I bring him back if _I _did it?"

Donald's mouth just dropped open, and he had to close it manually, with a wing.

"He's got ya there, Donald," Goofy remarked, to which Donald hissed for him to be quiet.

"Leave him alone, you guys," Kairi said, turning around. "Sora looks okay. We'd better just let him rest."

The group agreed. Axel couldn't avoid noticing Kairi was looking at him, and the uneasy feeling inside of him was consistent with yesterday's.

"Are _you_ okay? You look exhausted." The look on her face was making him feel worse.

"I'm fine. No biggie." He contradicted himself afterwards, as he coughed harshly from lack of air.

"Maybe you should rest too." Axel glanced to Sora's sleeping body, shaking his head.

He stood up, rotating so that he was facing the door conjoining the suites — when he fell, suddenly, to the floor.

* * *

><p>"Hey, hey, hey. Morning, sunshine."<p>

_Wha…?_

"Hey, get up, man. We don't have time to kill."

Axel sat up, grunting as he realized where he was — in the dark abyss, with Lea shaking him.

"Wh — Lea?"

"The one and only," Lea replied, pointing his thumb at himself. "Oh wait. I guess you'd probably count, too… man, this gets kind of confusing. Well, what can you do?"

"Damn it…" Axel swore.

_They're not gonna let_ _this_ _one go. _

"'This one'?" Lea asked. "The heck does that mean?"

"Stop doing this is what it means," Axel growled.

"I'm telling you, I dunno why you're fainting, bud. And, we're…"

"The same, yeah yeah I _know_."

"Someone's grumpy."

"Keep your mouth shut. I don't know why I keep ending up here." Axel stopped upon voicing this, hesitating.

"Well, maybe…"

"What?" Axel asked eagerly.

"…Never mind. No clue." Lea said, both of their heads hanging in an identical fashion. Lea looked up first, and Axel followed, staring directly across at his own eyes. "Well, looks like all our time is up for today. Catch you later, Ax… er, me."

"Oh, what do we do?" Axel heard Kairi's voice first, followed by Donald's.

"About _what_?"

"Donald, she's talking about Axel. Ya see? He's right there, lyin' on the floor all unconscience…"

"It's unconsCIOUS!"

"Don't do anything," Axel said. The words came out of his mouth easily — it seemed, for a reason unclear to him, that his trouble breathing had evaporated during his fainting venture. Was there something to be gained from the fainting after all? He couldn't discern it if there was. Either way, he was not finding it to be a convenient occurrence.

"Oh! You're awake. Here, don't move," she said, grabbing onto his arm as he pushed himself up.

"Let go of me," Axel said, sitting still suddenly as the words escaped his lips. She was looking straight at him as he sat, her hand tightly gripped on his right forearm. He let his eyes wander away; he just couldn't allow himself to look at her small hand grasping his forearm. It was making him sick.

"Oh, you're breathing better now at least," she commented under her breath. Axel fumbled around some more, trying to remove himself from her grip.

"Stop," she said. Axel tried to repeat himself, but couldn't get some of it out. "No… not until you tell me why you… why you can't look at me."

No response.

"Do you not like me? Did I do something?"

_No wonder he likes her, _Axel thought, repressing an urge to shake his head. _It's cuz she's just like he is — she's the problem, not me… Damn it. They're just kids. Naïve kids._

"No…"

"No?" she repeated hopefully. "Well, what is it, then? What's the reason?"

"You…" Axel began, breathing deeply. "You remind me of someone, I guess."

He couldn't help but think it didn't really matter how he responded. It was just another lie he could add to the pile he'd created, after all.

"Re… mind you of someone?"

"What… what's going on? Why am I… Kairi?"

"Sora!" Kairi, Donald and Goofy yelped as they heard Sora's voice. He'd sat up on the bed and was rubbing his head, looking from side-to-side.

"Don't ever do that again!" Donald scolded.

"Axel brought you back. He said you got attacked by a Heartless."

"Oh, I remember. A Novashadow!" Sora exclaimed, seeming to be proud of himself for remembering. "Wait. Axel, how did you…?"

Everyone in the group looked to him with the same expression of wonder that Sora wore on his face. He knew what they were thinking, of course. How _had_ he managed, being in the state that he was, against such an aggressive giant Heartless? Axel neglected to answer.

"Heh…" Sora said after a while, twisting the spikes on the back of his head, "I'm really not doing a very good job helping you, am I? I'm not supposed to get knocked out and leave you to fend for yourself _and _rescue me... man, I'm a real drag." Sora's cheerfulness threw all of them off. When Axel didn't reply, Sora got up, getting on his knees next to Kairi, who was still holding Axel's arm.

"Thanks, Axel," he said, simply.

"Sure," Axel said quietly.

"Are you… okay?" Sora asked, seeming to notice the husk in his voice.

"He's really tired. And he just fainted right before you woke up." Axel swore mentally. He'd been hoping to avoid mentioning the fainting part.

"Wha — really?" Sora's cheerfulness appeared to fall, and he reached out a hand and looked about to touch Axel, but didn't. "Again?"

"It's happened before?" Axel stood up at this point.

"Yeah… once, two days ago."

"Well that's not good…" Kairi said, looking to Axel with a bothered look as his eyes fled to the other direction.

"Yeah… I think I'd better go get Merlin."

"Hey," Axel interjected. "Let's not get all bent outta shape, alright?"

"You're the one who's bent out of shape." Axel bit his lip. He wondered if the boy even knew what the phrase meant. Without saying a word, he turned to the doorway, reaching out an arm to seize the doorknob, when he felt Kairi grab his arm again. He could tell it was hers easily — her palms were smooth, and not gloved like Sora's.

What had his felt like?

He looked back to the arm she'd latched on to, then at her face. Her expression remained the same. She didn't have to say anything.

"Ugh, for crying out loud…" Axel commented, groaning. "Stop _looking_ at me like that, would you?"

"Looking at you like what?"

"Like I killed your puppy or something."

"Well _sorry,_" she said angrily, letting go of his arm, throwing it to his side. Tensing, Axel turned to see her sit on the bed, head hung, her arms folded. With disgust, Axel realized he'd upset her with his comment, whether it was from just the _idea _of someone killing puppies or the way he'd said it, he wasn't sure. Either way, it hadn't been very tactful.

Sora's mouth had dropped, seeming to voice, "What'd you go and do _that _for?"

Sighing slightly, Axel bent over so that she was forced to look at him. _Girls_, he thought simply, clearing his throat.

"Look… I'm sorry," Axel said trying to meet her eyes.

"Don't feel like you haveto apologize."

_Girls_, he thought again, physically having to prevent himself from rolling his eyes.

"Well, then. This one's completely voluntary. Got it memorized?"

"I don't know why," she said after a while, "but I believe you."

"Thanks for that. Nice to know you're so sure of yourself…" He lifted up his hands mockingly, "'_I don't know why, but I believe you'…_"

"She said she believed you, Axel. Isn't that good enough?" Sora said, giving him another critical look.

"Yeah. Yeah, it is," Axel agreed after a while, again feeling his tactfulness go out the window.

"Now I'm going to get Merlin. See you later, 'kay?"

"Bu —"

"Let's go!" Donald said enthusiastically, Goofy at his side.

"Heh, okay," Sora said, grinning. "Just like old times."

* * *

><p>After Sora and company departed, Axel switched to the Red Room. He really didn't want to see that old wizard again, but as he didn't know where they were going he thought there wasn't much he could do at this point.<p>

As he'd switched rooms he'd been followed by an unwanted companion, Kairi. It was not that he disliked her, of course, it was simply that he couldn't stand looking at her, especially after having upset her so recently. Still, it was her own decision to follow him as well as to stay; she could have easily returned to the Green Room; he thought he'd made it clear enough that she wasn't obligated to sit with him. She'd sat down on the floor, as the room had no chairs (she denied Axel's offer to get her one), and Axel had sat on the bed. He was sitting upright and knew that he'd likely get chastised for it, but she remained silent. As he sat, he attempted to ignore the physical ailments that continued to plague him; two limit breaks in his current shape definitely exceeded "pushing it" and most likely also surpassed "_really_ pushing it". While he was tired, though, he'd dealt with worse. That said, it was beyond his control what Sora and his friends decided to do, so he was forced to let it go. Besides, he felt a lot better physically after having fainted and awakened.

"Axel," she addressed him, shocking him slightly.

"Uh, yeah?" he asked awkwardly.

"Thanks for helping Sora. I don't know what I would do if something had happened to him."

"Yeah, sure. Don't sweat it."

"Really," she said, with more emphasis, "you really put your neck out for him. And I… feel bad that you're not well."

Axel sighed.

"First, I'm fine. Second, it's not your fault. Or anyone's. Things happen. Got it memorized?"

Kairi didn't say anything, and was silently twirling her hair with her pointer finger.

"If you say so, Axel," she said finally, and that was all.

They sat alone, yet together, for a while. Axel eventually leaned against the pillows. His eyes were heavy, but he pushed aggressively to keep them open. Kairi seemed to be off in her own little world as Axel was attempting to force himself to awaken.

* * *

><p>The awakening that followed this was the most abrupt that he'd had in a while; apparently he had fallen asleep despite his efforts. In the several seconds that were typically spent waiting for him to open his eyes, he was already staring straight into the familiar wizard's face. Blinking a few times, Axel rubbed his eyes, subduing a groan.<p>

"Good morning, sonny — oh, my, good afternoon, rather," the old man corrected himself, scratching his head.

"Have a nice nap?" Sora asked Axel, smiling from next to Kairi, Donald, and Goofy.

Axel didn't respond, but yawned.

"Um, I know you just woke up and everything, but… Merlin says it's important for you to tell us what happened while I was out."

This was not something Axel wanted to talk about, especially not with any of Sora's friends. Still, there were five sets of eyes on him, and he couldn't avoid the obligation completely.

"Well I, you know, took out the Heartless that attacked you."

"But… that was a Novashadow! And how did _you_ do it by _yourself_? Novashadows are really tough Heartless!"

"I attacked it. That's pretty much it," Axel responded, sighing and leaning back on a pillow. "And trust me, I'm well aware they're toughies. My legs, arms and overall exhaustion are making that clear. Simultaneously."

"You're lying." Axel bit his lip.

"I'm not lying, kid."

"I told you already, you're a bad liar."

"Ugh," Axel groaned. Despite the fact that he wasn't lying, he felt compelled to comment. "Y'know, I used to be a good liar. Something happened, I guess. Got mixed up with you pouty-faced squirts."

There was a brief silence, and Axel momentarily feared that they had taken the remark the wrong way.

"What, like you started to care?" Sora observed a few seconds later, putting a hand on his hip and hiding a grin.

"Whoa, don't go saying anything crazy, now," Axel replied, unable to subdue a smile.

"Boys, if there really isn't an issue, I must be going," Merlin said, scratching his temple.

"I told them already, there isn't. I'm just a little tired, is all. And I'm not lying."

"Axel, please, just tell us," Kairi pleaded, looking uncomfortably from him to Merlin.

"Ugh… I used my limit, okay?" He said this with the logic that it would subdue their concern if he left out the fact that he had, in fact, used it twice. What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, he figured. Besides, what he'd said technically _was _true — the fact that he said he'd used his limit didn't mean that he had only used it once.

"Your limit?" Merlin said, looking at Axel through his glasses. "That doesn't seem to be the best idea."

"What was I supposed to do?" Axel growled, raising an eyebrow in irritation.

"Run away, boy."

"I'm no coward, old man, and don't plan to start being one now."

"I've never thought it cowardly to recognize your weaknesses," Merlin said insouciantly. "Now, as I said, I really am quite busy. There is very little I can do about physical strain, I'm afraid, and the fainting just seems to be a side effect of the heart piece I created. That in mind, there is one thing that I _can_ do."

With this comment, Merlin's wand was once again pointed at Axel's chest, and Axel gasped for breath as the spell hit him. Merlin bowed, waving goodbye, and then disappeared. Sora and Kairi were standing there awkwardly as Axel settled his breathing once again.

"What did he do?" Sora asked, scratching his head. Looking himself over, Axel shook his head, shrugging. He didn't feel any better, mentally or physically, and he couldn't help but wonder when — or, God forbid, _if _— he would.

Truthfully, everything just felt terrible. Any motivation that may have been present previously seemed to have evaporated: normally he took his problems head on, but now he was being passive, avoidant. He didn't want to think about what was to come, and he couldn't help but wonder if this was the work of that dreadful little organ that beat in his chest.


	9. Chasing the Uncatchable

They were waiting.

Axel had made a decision that night, a decision that he thought was necessary: he was going to fight the next time a threat posed itself. If they didn't really believe he had defeated the Novashadow the prior night, they would believe it after today. He wasn't going to be able to take just standing around for much longer, he knew; it was much too frustrating; so he figured he would have to show them that he could handle it. He had to prove himself. It was awkward to think that he was trying to prove himself to a bunch of children, but he had to get over that. Because, once he did prove himself, they would have no reason to tell him not to fight and he would feel better. Or, at least, he hoped he would.

"Well, I think Kairi's almost ready. She's coming with us today. You don't mind, right? Wait a s —"

"You're not waiting on me, are you?" Kairi interrupted, exiting from the Green Room and finding Axel and Sora standing in the Red Room's doorway.

"Hey, Kairi. Looks like we're all ready, then."

Axel had looked Kairi in the eyes, but had been able to maintain it for only a few seconds.

_Ugh, man… I still can't even… _He scolded himself. _Damn it, I've gotta get this under control…_

"I don't think he's listening, Sora."

"Huh?" Axel returned to the real world as he heard Kairi speak.

"Axel, I asked _where you think we should look today_."

"Oh, um," Axel curled his lip. "Man, I don't know. Wherever."

"Isn't there someplace you think he'd be?" Kairi put in. "Besides Twilight Town, I mean?"

"He could be anywhere."

"But there are no other likely places?"

"No," Axel replied after hesitating.

"Ugh, you're acting weird again. What's _wrong_?"

"…Just tired," he responded with a sigh that turned to a smile. He intended it to hide the fact that he really was genuinely exhausted from the encounter the day prior. "You've been making me get up at the crack of dawn, after all."

"…Wait, what? You go to bed in the afternoon! How could you not get enough sleep?" It took Sora a few moments to realize that Axel was joking. "Oh… well, okay. Why don't we look someplace close, then? Hercules Coliseum is just over the way. Has Ventus ever been to the Coliseum?"

"As a matter of fact, he has," Axel acknowledged.

"That would be a good place to look. It's not that big, either," Kairi commented.

"What do you think, Axel?"

"Yeah, sounds good."

With Axel's agreement, the group left. Conveniently, Sora had been to the world before, and he was able to warp drive to the Coliseum as he had with Twilight Town. The backlash from the quick stop-and-go still irked Axel, but he overlooked it. Hopping off at the Coliseum Gates, the only entrance, the group strolled onto the walkway.

Axel recognized the two statues that opposed each other before them, looming over the doorway as if they'd been frozen mid-battle. He'd not been sent to the Coliseum very often; in fact, he noted, it was typically Roxas, or Roxas along with another of the Organization's members. Roxas had informed him that every once in a while the stadium would hold its games, or a Heartless fighting competition. The information was correct, from what Axel could tell, as the walls were covered in boards that bore rankings.

"Man, it's been a while since I've been here," Sora commented, walking down the steps and to the center of the floor. Before he said anything else, a swarm of Heartless appeared. Kairi gasped, and Axel jumped. Sora summoned his keyblade, glancing between the sheer number of them.

The majority of the Heartless were Jumbo Cannons, but some of them were Loudmouths and Flare Notes. Sora began slashing at the enemies, as Axel readied to summon his chakrams.

"No, Axel! Don't!" She'd grabbed his arm, and was holding him back. Apparently she'd been informed of the fact that they didn't want him fighting. This would be easier if she hadn't known, he knew, but he wasn't going to stop on account of that.

"Let go of me—" he stopped himself, wincing at the words once again. Regardless, he pulled away, summoning his weapons.

Or at least, he thought he summoned them. He looked down upon hearing a clicking sound, and found the items not in his hands. Trying to force them to appear a few more times, he grunted after hearing the clicking over and over.

There was something similar to a trigger in his mind that, if pulled, would cause the metal objects to materialize in his palms. However, as he was continually tugging the trigger, the normal process wasn't being executed. Instead, he would feel the weapons begin to form in his hands, but then the clicking would sound, and nothing would appear.

_Wait a sec… _Axel realized, standing straighter.

"For crying out loud," Axel said underneath his breath, resisting the urge to grind his teeth. Kairi grabbed his forearm again after seeing him stand still.

"What're you muttering about?" she asked as he struggled to be released from her grip.

Sora noticed the shuffle between the two of them, and released the hearts of the last few Heartless hastily. Jogging over, he let his weapon vanish from his hand.

"Hey, what's up guys?"

Axel was mumbling to himself with disgust.

"I don't know; he's upset about something."

As Axel continued to growl under his breath, fists clenched in fury, Sora shook him, standing from below. Sora tried to meet his eyes with Axel's from underneath, but wasn't succeeding.

"Hey, what's wrong? Are you okay?"

Axel mumbled inaudibly in response, his words a combination of unintelligible swears.

"We can't understand you, Axel."

"That old wizard," Axel spat, "locked my magic."

"Locked…?" Sora repeated, giving Axel a bewildered look that became a look of realization. "Oh, you mean, so you can't use it?"

Axel grumbled. Looking to Kairi, Sora shrugged, apparently not knowing what to say. Kairi was still grasping Axel's arm, and she tried instead.

"Well, maybe that's… for the best?" she said hopefully.

_Shut up_, Axel thought vulgarly. He didn't want to hear that it was "for his own good", or that he was "better off", or whatever explanation anyone would come up with. In fact, if either of them went on to say such things he knew he would personally knock some sense into them. So he decided to cut them off at the chase.

"Let's just get this over and done with, alright?" he said, sighing and walking ahead.

He approached the large doors bordered by the tall warriors, and, with the help of Sora, pushed them open and entered the small room, a vestibule. It was primarily a yellow-goldish color, and trophies lined the sides. Directly in front of them there was a wooden board that was hanging from some large chains; it served to block off the doorway and, in capital letters, read "CLOSED". Aside from that, there wasn't much else in the room, excluding the fact that next to the trophies on the left there was a pedestal with a closed treasure chest sitting atop it.

Eventually Axel's eyes found the two other beings in the room. One was a man — a very muscular man — Axel observed, feeling a twinge of dislike form as he thought of Pence. The man's orange hair was curly and he was wearing a short skirt-like piece of clothing that Axel couldn't help raising an eyebrow at.

_Whoa there... short enough skirt? Think he's trying to… tell us something, or what?_ He noticed his other attire and reconsidered. _On second thought, it's probably common for the uh… culture 'round here._

He thought about it some more._ …Still…_

The other creature in front of them was of a nature he'd never seen before. It looked like a sort of goat that walked on two legs. Its lower half was quite a bit hairier then its top half, as if as it had aged it had gone bald. Horns protruded from its head, and it was spewing words as well as spit at the short-skirted man.

"I got TWO WORDS for you, Herc," the creature said, shouting passionately whilst pointing at the orange-haired man. "LET'S. GET. _GOING_!"

_That's three words, you idiot,_ Axel thought, grunting quietly to cover up his urge to scoff.

"Hey, Phil. Hey, Herc." Sora greeted, smiling as he always did. Axel looked to him, a little shocked, with a face that read: You know this guy too? Axel was starting to think this was getting absolutely ridiculous.

"Oh, hey champ!" The goat greeted Sora as he turned to them, his face contorting to somewhat resemble joy, or, at least, the closest an obviously cranky old goat could look to showing joy. The orange-haired man also seemed excited.

"Hey, are you here for the competition?" the man asked, grinning in a Sora-like way.

"There's a comp… well, no, we're actually here to look for someone."

"Oh… Well, good luck with that, kid. We've got ourselves the biggest crowd I've ever seen!" the goat replied, throwing his arms up for emphasis.

"Really?" Kairi asked.

"Yup! Big, huge…" the goat's eyebrows flew up upon noticing Kairi, who had come up behind Axel. "Well, well, who's this pretty little lady?"

"Oh, that's my friend, Kairi."

"Well, helloooo," the creature hoofed over and kissed the girl on the hand. "Nice to meet you, sugarcakes."

"Uh, hello," Kairi said awkwardly. She'd pulled her hand away slowly.

"Say, sugarcakes, you got any plans for later? Ya see, when I'm not training epic heroes I like to recite some epic poetry…" the goat pressured.

"Hey," Axel interrupted. The goat finally seemed to notice Axel. The goat used a single eye to scan Axel, while his other eye remained fixed on Kairi.

"Ya need somethin', kid?"

If Axel wasn't already planning to say what he was going to say next, this prompted it — he was rather fed up at being referred to as "kid" by this point.

"Just a _suggestion_ here, but maybe you should consider flirting with someone, um, just abit closer to your own age? And maybe of the same … I don't know… _species_?"

Sora had to visibly hold in a laugh. Phil noticed, and glared at the boy, who'd placed a hand over his mouth.

"Well, fortunately for you, kid, nobody _asked_ what you think."

"And unfortunately for you, I don't think I can just sit by and watch some old goat trying to ask a teen girl on a date. It ain't in line with my, eh, 'moral principles.'"

"Goat? Who you callin' a goat? Its satyr! S-A-T-Y-R! Get your part-human species right, for Zeus's sake!" The satyr paused. "And I was just giving the girl something to… erm… boost her self-esteem."

"Right," Axel said. "Anyways, we're looking for someone. We're wondering if you've seen him."

"And why should I tell you, ya punk?"

"Please, Phil," Sora pleaded.

"Eh," Phil said, glaring at Axel and then sighing. "Fine, champ, what's he look like?"

"Well, he's blond, with blue eyes and spiky hair, and's about my height," Sora informed, pointing to one of the spikes on his own hair.

"Hey, I saw a guy like that!" the orange-haired man said excitedly. "He just entered the competition. He's probably over waiting at the stands."

"Whoa! Great!" Sora threw his head over his shoulder, smiling at Axel, then shouting, "Come on!"

Sora was eager, Axel could tell, as he jumped over the sign that was blocking off the area ahead. Axel didn't have to jump, and simply stepped over it. Needless to say, his hopes weren't as high as Sora's, but he supposed that was just a difference in their natures. Kairi approached after the two of them went over, and Sora had already been consumed by the black walkway ahead. Kairi seemed unsure as to which way to get over the board, as it was in a position where she would be able to go over or under but neither would be completely comfortable. She eventually decided to go under. Axel waited for her.

As he followed her, he thought about what he'd done for her. Personally, he thought his actions were justifiable. It wasn't that he'd wanted to ruin the goat's chances of getting a date (though, from his first impression, he felt bad for any woman who ended up with him as a boyfriend). He just felt the relationship should at least be _legal_. Because, well, Axel felt the honest truth was that this goat was hoping for a bit more out of his woman than just that he wanted to recite _poetry _for her.

Standing beside her, they both emerged from the black hallway into the arena. The goat hadn't been lying — the stands were pretty well-filled, all with whooping fans holding flags, banners, and other sorts of related items. There were two stands, one on the west side and one on the east, both running the entire length of the walls. The coliseum had no roof, and the sunlight was streaming in beautifully through the opening. Despite the bright light, several torches burned strongly at the top corners of the arena's walls. Sora was up ahead of the two of them, running toward the people that were standing off to the side, presumably the competitors. In no apparent rush, Axel followed alongside Kairi until he spotted who Sora was after: there was a blond, spiky haired head walking in the opposite direction. Sora was calling something at him, but Axel couldn't make it out.

Then the spiky haired blond turned around to face them.

"Cloud?" Sora said in disbelief.

_Man, you know everyone, don't you… keyblade master?_

After being amused at the fact that Sora knew virtually everyone in every world, Axel diverted his attention instead to the orange-haired man's apparently lacking observational skills. The guy had apparently either seen the blond man, "Cloud", from very far away or was quite simply terrible at perceiving age. Cloud was clearly in his twenties, probably early, making him twenty-one or twenty-two — either way, he was definitely _not _Sora's age. As far as the height and spiky hair went, he was close enough to Sora's height that Axel would say they were about the same, and the guy definitely had spiky hair and blue eyes, no doubt about that. Axel wanted to give the orange-haired man a bit more credit, though, so he decided to attribute the age mistake to the possibility that he'd missed hearing that attribute mentioned in the description.

"Sora?" the man replied, eyes widening slightly.

"Hey, where have _you_ been? The others were wondering. You've gotta stop just disappearing like that."

"I just…" Cloud began, eyes glued to the floor, "needed… some time."

"I guess that's fair. Just… Hey, why don't you come back with us? They'd all be happy to see you."

"I…" Cloud hesitated, "I can't go right now. I… signed up for this contest already."

"What? I thought…" Sora seemed about to protest something, but then changed his mind. "Oh, well... we'll wait for you. We're actually here to look for someone, so um, we could look around or something while you're here."

"He's not here," Axel said, shaking his head. He'd been scanning the heads of the competitors and spectators, and he'd only seen three blond heads in the crowd, excluding Cloud, and all three of them were women. Axel had always known blond hair to be scarce, but he didn't think it this infrequent. That aside, he'd come to the conclusion that Roxas was not here.

"He's not? Oh, well uh… I don't know then."

"We can wait, can't we?" Axel said.

"But I thought you wanted to go back and sleep."

"I'll be fine."

"Well, thanks, Axel," Sora said, turning back to Cloud. "We're waiting for you."

"O…kay," Cloud replied, tilting his head slightly. "So, uh… you going to enter?"

"Enter?" Sora repeated the word, putting a finger to his chin. "Well, I might as well, huh? Can't win too many competitions, right?"

A grin spread out across Sora's face, as Axel knew it would, as he committed.

"Hmph," Cloud grunted, crossing his arms and walking off in the other direction.

"Hey, wait, I was just joking!" Sora called, chasing after him, leaving Axel and Kairi standing beside each other. His pointy brown hair had already camouflaged into the rest of the crowd as he followed Cloud. The center of the arena was clearing now; the separate groups of people were heading in opposite directions, some to the left, and others to the right.

"Looks like they're getting started," Kairi commented.

"Better find seats," Axel said, and they both strolled to the left, where all the bystanders seemed to be going. There were several columns that were designated as the aisle, and the two of them were lucky enough to get through to the center way, on which they walked to the third row from the top. As they sat down, Axel graded the seat they'd managed to get. The view was pretty good, he could see all the people pretty well, and they were directly in the center. In addition, no one extraordinarily tall was sitting in front of them (while this was not typically a problem for Axel, as he was rather tall, it had still happened to him on rare occasions). Overall, Axel had to admit, they'd gotten decent seats, especially considering how late they'd been to arrive. He settled in as the arena cleared, and shouts reverberated throughout the arena.

"You know, Axel…" Axel heard Kairi's voice all of a sudden, and turned to her. "That was really nice of you."

"What was?" Axel asked, now turning away from her.

"You know what," she said harshly, but she was smiling.

To be completely honest, Axel _wasn't_ sure what he'd done. He wasn't sure if she was referring the earlier encounter with Phil or if she meant what had happened with Sora just then.

_Well, I'd better not press any buttons by asking, _Axel knew. _We're dealing with a double dose of complicated, here._

Axel felt a twinge of remorse.

"Well I've got nothing better to do. Y'know," Axel finally spat out.

"If you say so," she said, simply.

Feeling himself becoming embarrassed (an emotion he could easily distinguish now), Axel closed his eyes to calm himself. He could hear Phil talking loudly, presumably on a microphone or some other decibel-accentuating device, announcing the beginning of the event. Opening his eyes again, Axel spotted Sora standing on the right end of the arena. This was to be expected, of course, as Sora was the lowest seed, but what he opposed that shocked Axel — it was a gigantic Heartless. He recognized the Heartless as a Dustflier, a detestably strong enemy that Axel remembered Roxas telling him about and seeing in the Organization's bestiary. How the Dustflier could possibly be the second-to-last seed Axel wondered, but this thought was overridden by concern over Sora's predicament.

The whistle was blown, and the battle began. Sora charged upon the sound, letting out a powerful holler, but the Dustflier was too quick; it flipped in the air before Sora could strike, knocking the boy across the arena. Screeches were heard in the crowd as Axel gasped. The Dustflier wasn't done yet; it let its head fall back and began spouting huge orbs of flame that flew towards Sora's body so precisely that it seemed that they were magnetic.

"Sora!" Screaming, Axel stood up, jumping over the crowd and into the arena beside Sora, but it was too late — Sora had been knocked out by the Heartless in one swift hit, his body abruptly sliding to a stop after contacting with the arena floor.

Swiftly, Axel bent down over the younger boy's still body. Examining him briefly, he noted that he had no visible injuries, so he was likely fine. _Oh, well… At least the match is over, right?_

Axel's calmness only lasted momentarily. When he pressed against Sora's chest, he found he was barely breathing. He gasped after inhaling too quickly, and felt his hands more intently on Sora's body. He wasn't moving.

Axel looked to his right, then his left. No one in the crowd was moving either; they were all staring at him but they didn't even have any faces, and it was like none of them cared at all — like time had frozen still for everyone but he, Sora, and the Heartless. Phil hadn't moved either, and the other man was nowhere to be seen. Axel didn't understand; he just kept looking back and forth, from one person's vacant face to another's.

"SQUAAAA!"

Turning, he saw the Dustflier and inhaled suddenly once more. He yelped involuntarily as he dodged a quick peck from the Heartless, then, after rolling to the side, he stood. At this point he noticed another problem; as he'd stood white had begun to cloud his sight — his vision was dying on him, likely due to his prior exhaustion. He could no longer make out the people in the crowd, or their empty faces. All he could hear were their cries of terror. Or maybe he was imagining them. They still hadn't moved from the stands.

"SQUUUUAAAAA!" the Dustflier let out again.

_Don't have time…_ _Gotta go!_ Axel screamed in his head, eyes widening as he barely made out Sora's limp body out of the corner of his eye. Scooping him up by the chest, he began to run. He heard the Dustflier's wings flapping intensely behind him, as well as a few fireballs piercing the rocky ground. Terrified, Axel searched visually for someone, anyone, as he ran for his life and Sora's. But he was too tired. He was slowing down.

From here on it was strange. He could hear the drone of the crowd fading away as he ran out of the arena, the Heartless now the only thing he could hear. He felt himself tiring, his legs growing heavy, and joining Sora in sleep seemed ever-so inviting. Pulling each of his legs above the ground had become a struggle, and he could no longer see the details of the environment around him; all of it was fading away. And as Axel ran, he had a feeling. It was a peculiar feeling, one of both familiarity and dread. This pursuit, how everything was fading away, it reminded him of something — yes, it reminded him of something. And he knew what that something was. It reminded him of death.

And when Axel looked to Sora once more, he saw Roxas.

And after that, there was nothing.


	10. Reprise

My. Any feedback always appreciated. Enjoy. ...Or hate I suppose, if that's your preference. It's all up to you.

* * *

><p>"Axel… Axel."<p>

All of a sudden it came back: his vision, his consciousness. All of sudden he saw Sora where Sora should be.

"Huh?" Axel responded, blinking several times before becoming truly conscious. Realizing he was leaning on Kairi's shoulder, he sat erect, rubbing his right eye and squinting in bewilderment.

"You fell asleep."

_Well, ain't that a relief! _Axel thought, letting out a pleased breath, though he remained shaken.

"Why… why didn't you wake me up?"

"I don't know," she said, not looking at him. "I thought I'd just let you sleep. Why? Did you have a bad dream?"

"Um…" Axel sighed. He didn't want to lie. Not when he didn't have to. "Probably… not in my top ten."

"I'm sorry —"

"Nah, don't sweat it," he said, eyes migrating to the arena ahead of them. A battle seemed to have just finished up as Axel had awakened. He quickly changed the subject. "What's up now?"

"It's the final match. I thought I'd wake you up for that."

"Heh, thanks," Axel said, smiling slightly. "So uh… who's up?"

"Who else?" Kairi smiled at him wide, "Sora and Cloud, that's who."

"Ah…"

The goat-man decided to intervene and make some opening commentary for the match, stressing the significance of the bout in a dramatic speech. Both Sora and Cloud were introduced on opposite ends of the arena, Sora waving excitedly as opposed to Cloud's rather lax wave. Cloud was holding a gigantic sword that was taller than he was, though Axel had noted that the guy wasn't particularly tall; Axel himself likely had about fifteen centimeters on him. Still, Axel was curious as to how Cloud would handle the blade in battle due to its obvious weight. At this point Sora said something to Cloud that Axel couldn't make out over the cheers, but Axel was sure it was some sort of friendly motivation. The goat creature at last ended his rant, retreating from the stage as Sora and Cloud squatted into battle positions. The whistle blew, and they were off.

Almost the instant the battle began Axel became fascinated by Cloud's battling style, as well as how similar it was to his own. Both of them, though they fought with drastically different weapons, specialized in attack speed and power. On top of that, they both utilized teleportation in their fights. Cloud was consistently enacting an attack in which he would lunge at Sora multiple times in a row at stellar speed. However, Sora, as he was typically, was unfazed by the attempts to catch him off-guard. He would dodge the attacks as if he'd dodged them hundreds of times before, then land a few hits on Cloud's backside. Honestly, Axel was now curious as to if they'd ever fought before.

Cloud, whether or not they had fought before, seemed a little distressed as he released a surge of power and sent himself flying in the air above Sora, attempting to strike him from above now. But, as always, Sora was too good. He knocked Cloud down and took a last few hits. Cloud reluctantly lifted an arm into the air, signifying defeat, and the whistle was blown for the last time. Hollers filled the stadium as Sora was announced the winner. Waving to the crowd, Sora walked over to Cloud and reached out a hand to help him up. He refused, standing up on his own, but nodded at Sora in a sportsmanlike way. Again, Sora spoke to Cloud as Cloud moved back off the arena floor to wait on the sidelines. Seeming overjoyed, Sora jogged over to the other end of the arena to accept his large trophy. It was gold, a traditional shade of trophies, with long pillars sticking out of the top, creating a fairly accurate rendition of the coliseum.

_That's trophy number two for Sora. He's done a load in the last few days… but me? Nothing. I haven't done anything. All this searching, and I've been as productive as a garden snail._

Before Axel could ponder if that statement was fair to garden snails, he felt something touch him; Kairi was pulling him by the arm again, guiding him down the stands and to where Sora was standing, holding his trophy in the crook of his arm with a wide smirk spread across his face.

"Hey, way to go, Sora!" Kairi said, smiling so wide that her eyes were closed.

"Thanks," Sora said as Cloud approached from the other side. "Hey, Cloud, good match, huh?"

"Yeah," Cloud said emotionlessly.

"Guess we'd better get back then, right, Axel?" Sora said, scratching his cheek with his free hand. When Axel didn't respond, Sora punched him in the shoulder. "Hey, how about we drop Cloud off and then go get some ice cream? You'd like that, wouldn't you, Axxy? Since, you know, we didn't really get to yesterday."

"…Axxy?" Axel repeated, blinking. "What am I, your dog now? I thought you were the one that said, 'Why can't we call everyone by their real names?'"

"You want ice cream or not?" Sora said, rolling his eyes.

"Alright, alright," Axel said, submitting.

"Ice cream?" Kairi said, a puzzled look on her face.

"Yeah, Axel's been taking me up to the clock tower in Twilight Town for a treat every day after we look. You can come too; I'm sure he wouldn't mind."

"Would you?" Kairi turned to him, and Axel ran a palm down the length of his long neck.

"Nope," Axel responded, but he swore mentally upon hearing himself stutter slightly.

* * *

><p>As planned, they left the arena and brought Cloud back to the Green Room of the hotel. No one was there, so Sora offered to wait with him, but Cloud assured Sora that he didn't mind waiting, so the group departed to Twilight Town. They stopped by the marketplace to purchase the ice cream, which Sora was insistent on paying for despite Axel's pleas. Then, with Sora's prompting, they arrived very quickly at the tower. Axel had still been hoping he would be there, but, of course, it had come to no avail. Sora had slowed down when they reached the steps, seeming intent on guiding Kairi up them, like he wanted to give the sights as a gift. Axel had stayed behind the two as they walked, not wanting to interrupt their "moment" together. As they reached the top, Sora sat down to in the middle of the cement railing, and held Kairi's hand as she sat to his left. Axel sat on his right.<p>

_Today makes six… _Axel thought, looking up at the setting sun.

_I'm… getting better at looking at her, at least. I feel like she's… forgiven me. But… I guess that's just a lie. She doesn't know any better. She can't. But… if she did know… would she…_

"How'd you find such a great place?" she asked him abruptly, and he bit his tongue to wake himself from his transfixion. Her words began circling in his mind, and he furrowed his brow. Again, he got the feeling that someone had said that to him before.

"I uh… I don't know," Axel answered, not completely honestly. "It was … a while back."

"Really? How long ago?" Sora asked, voice muffled by the ice cream in his mouth.

"Er… you kids weren't more than tots, that's for sure," Axel responded, again, not completely honestly.

"Wow, that long ago?" Sora replied, turning to the sunset. "Was your friend Ven… "

"Nah… Anyway, I think you kids have had your fill of answers for today. Come back tomorrow."

"What!" Sora exclaimed, "I only asked, like, one!"

"One too many. Now give a guy a break, would ya?"

"Fine, mister secretive." Kairi laughed at this.

"Come on, Sora, he has a right to keep a few things to himself." Sora turned to Axel accusingly.

"Look what you did, Axel! You turned my own friend against me."

"I'm not against you, Sora, I'm just…" Now both she and Sora were laughing. Their laughter filled the vacant air high above the sounds of the city as if there was no one else in the world but the two of them — no one but them and the setting sun's guiding light.

* * *

><p>The group was out for longer than was typical, Axel had noticed. He himself had talked much less than was usual; the discussions were mainly between Sora and Kairi. Kairi, he could tell, had been persistently attempting to include him in the conversations, but Axel simply didn't feel motivated to participate at the time. As he sat there, his mind would float off to his own exchanges with Roxas. His head was hung for the majority of their stay atop the clock tower. The thoughts that had pestered him since the first day resurfaced; he was wondering what all of this would accomplish, and if he was ever going to find his best friend — though he wasn't even sure himself what that meant.<p>

After returning to the hotel, Axel was left alone in the Red Room while Sora and Kairi met with a few of the others in the Green Room. He was glad to have the time to himself without anyone trying to push themselves into his own problems, but there was an unavoidable loneliness that was also present. For the longest while he just lay atop the bed, hands behind his head, looking at the canopy that hung above.

It was now the middle of the night, and there was a clear cycle in his thinking: his thoughts would shift between memories of Roxas to the odd dream at the Coliseum (though he wasn't really one to ponder the implications of his dreams, it had been a reasonably shocking thing to awaken from), then to the current issue of his magic being locked, and then back again, but the cycle eventually halted at the magic-locking issue after some very conscious attempts to distract himself.

_Sora can handle the Heartless. I know that. I just… I hate just standing there. Feeling useless… _Taking in a breath, he came to a conclusion. _I need my magic. I won't use it… but it'll be good to know it's there… right?_

He sat up so that his feet touched the floor, contemplating what he could possibly do to counteract his problem. Only one possibility came to mind, and he knew it was the only thing he could do.

He would have to sneak out to get there, and now was the perfect time; he knew the others wouldn't fancy finding out about this venture, so the middle of the night when everyone was asleep was ideal. In fact, he was sure he'd get a proper scolding and maybe even a whack or two if any of them found out. But quite frankly he'd grown rather tired of being babysat. It made him feel like a child, like he was dependent on other people for his own well-being, and he hated it. He could take care of himself. He'd done it for years now. He didn't _really _need anyone else; his staying with Sora and his friends had been his own choice. He didn't really need them.

Standing up, he reached out for the doorknob, wrist already rotated and ready to turn it, but then stopped himself.

_Wait. How am I supposed to… get there? If I take the ship I have to talk to those nutty chipmunks, and they're sure to be suspicious of me going on a lone trip at this hour._

Swallowing a large gulp of air, he knew how he'd have to do this. He closed his eyes, swearing mentally. He had been hoping to not have to do this, but it seemed apparent that it had to be done.

Rolling his shoulders a few times in preparation, he reached out in front of him and formed a dark corridor.

It had been a while since he'd travel via dark portal, and he felt the nausea to prove it. When he appeared in front of Yen Sid's tower, he had to take a minute or so to regain his composure.

_Well, _Axel thought, taking in a deep breath, _I guess that went pretty good. I mean, considering I could've corrupted my heart and all._

Anyways, he'd figured it was more polite to come in through the front door rather than appearing at the wizard's desk without a proper entrance. This was a consideration he hadn't taken into account in quite a while, seeing as it had been a _very_ long time since he'd given more than a rat's ass about what anyone thought about him, and he was forced to accredit it to the fact that he was now sporting a portion of a heart. He wasn't sure as to whether to categorize this politeness as a benefit or a hindrance, so he just left it at that.

Entering the enchanted tower without hesitation, he began to navigate the twirling staircases. This didn't really help his nausea very considerably. He felt himself heating up, and he unzipped his jacket and rolled up his sleeves in an attempt to cool himself down. He pushed through it regardless, reaching the landing directly prior to the Moon Chamber with ease. Soon he had passed through the chamber that followed, and then he had reached the wizard's study. He sensed Yen Sid's presence in the room.

Yen Sid was sitting at his desk, as Axel had expected, and looked up at Axel's arrival. Axel just tilted his head in greeting, looking around the small round room.

"And who might you be?" the wizard asked in his deep voice, even though somehow from his eyes Axel felt the wizard already knew who he was.

"The name's Axel. Got it memorized?" Axel replied anyway, out of habit abandoning his politeness.

"And to what might I attribute your presence in my tower?"

"Well," Axel began, leaning against the doorframe of the room. "It seems I've gotten myself into a bit of a… pickle."

"How unfortunate for you."

"Yeah," Axel agreed, "and it seems that you're the only guy that can help me out. So I'm here to make a deal."

"What is it you wish of me?" Yen Sid asked seriously.

"Erm, well… my magic's been… kinda locked." At this the sorcerer let out an obvious laugh.

"I highly doubt anyone would go to the trouble to lock your magic."

"'Scuse me?" Axel said, eyes narrowing.

"Locking is very advanced magic, castable only by an exclusive few."

"Well, then, care to tell me what's the deal with my magic?" Axel not quite yelled the words, but didn't state them either as he drew forth his weapons. Again, the same clicking sound filled the air as they were halted from summoning. Yen Sid's face fell from a smile to a frown.

"It appears I am mistaken. Your magic has indeed been locked."

"Great, now that we've got that _settled_, can you fix it?"

"Can I fix it?" Yen Sid said, laughing again. "Of course I can. But now I am wondering what would motivate Merlin to do such a thing."

"Beats me. Now, anyw —"

"Ah. Merlin then." Axel's jaw dropped.

"You —"

"Sorry, can't help you, boy. Now, goodbye."

"But —"

With a shot of Yen Sid's wand, Axel was gone.

He reappeared in front of the tower, hitting the ground with an abrupt thud. Rubbing his behind, he stood up, not pleased with how his attempt had just gone. Honestly he hadn't been sure what he was going to offer the wizard in return for unlocking his magic; he'd been planning on improvising that part when the time came, but he'd still been hoping to get the exchange further than he had succeeded in doing there.

But now he was stuck. He couldn't regain use of his magic until Merlin permitted him to. In the back of his mind — the hopeful part of his mind — there was a voice that was telling him he would find some other way, but he was skeptical. Not good.

Returning to a standing position, he brushed himself off, and then he suddenly froze. He'd heard a ruffling in the bushes nearby. The lack of sound near the tower only made the noise more deafening as he staggered backward.

A blast had struck him before he'd even finished the thought, and he fell to the ground, shocked. The shot had been from afar, and he could barely make the source out from the bushes. Its head peeked out of the bush's top, and Axel gasped — that was no Heartless. The black hood was completely visible now, as well as the shadows of the face beneath it. As he saw the smoothness of the boy's chin from afar, Axel knew it was Roxas, but before Axel could manage any words, he had disappeared.

_Roxas… _Axel thought for a few seconds. _Why won't you …_

Returning to a conscious state, he formed a dark corridor without another thought, doing it as quickly as possible, and hoping beyond hope that he wasn't followed.

Looking around cautiously as he arrived in the Red Room, he confirmed that he hadn't been. He was safe. Sitting down on the Red Room bed, he let himself breathe. Roxas looked the same as when Axel had seen him at the Mansion. After his sudden disappearance Axel had been reluctant to admit that it was Roxas, despite knowing himself to be in denial. He knew within his sliver of a heart that it was his "friend" that had led him away, and it was his "friend" that had attacked him just now. As to why he did those things, well, that was a completely separate issue. One that made this feeling so unbelievable.

The adrenaline that had consumed him was now wearing off, and he became confused when he noticed a pain in his chest.

Glancing down, he found the pain's source without trouble, and he gasped. His chest was bleeding, and even more, it_ hurt_. Axel quickly tugged off his shirt. The injury was a deep diagonal gash stretching from his abdomen's right side (albeit barely) all the way to the upper left. But that was not what was concerning about the wound — what was concerning was its color, or rather, the area around it. The area around the injury was already turning a blackish color, as if it were bruising, but this black tint wasn't similar to any bruising injury he'd ever seen. Wrapping his arm around his side, now overcome with agonizing pain, the blood began to flow down his forearm.

_Oh, shit… _he thought, still in a shocked and calm state.

It was an odd experience for him, though, as he watched the blood escape his body. It was so familiar now that it was happening; it was like the feeling of actually bleeding had been a memory that had lain dormant within his mind for years, leaving it unable to be recollected without a trigger, a reminder — without experiencing it again. He couldn't help staring. It had been such a long time since he'd been able to bleed that it almost felt like a privilege.

As the pain began to worsen, Axel forced himself to focus, and he began wracking his brain for what to do. He quickly formulated an idea.

A potion. It was that easy. He'd drink a potion, and he'd be fine. He recalled storing some in the wardrobe in the room when he'd changed back into his clothes. Jumping up as fast as his body would allow, he frisked the drawers until his hand found the bottle. Drinking it like a shot, he threw his head back and swallowed it in a gulp. He felt better instantly, simply knowing the potion would heal him made him feel better.

Until it didn't. When the pain didn't subside, he observed the injury, and it hadn't changed in the least.

_What? _Axel exclaimed in his head. _Shouldn't it have at least done _something_? _

It hadn't, though. The bleeding was still heavy, and the bruising wasn't looking any less intense. Holding his head with his free hand, he swore.

_This one must be busted,_ he concluded, tossing the bottle. Hurriedly, he grabbed another, and drank it.

Nothing.

_I should… _He thought of the others. _…Nope. Not doing that._

_But… crap, what now? _he thought, sitting back on the bed, cradling his head in his hand and continuing to swear. He tried to breathe._ Okay, okay, relax. Just… just stop the bleeding for now. Yeah. Stop the bleeding._

Looking around the room, he considered what might provide as a suitable dressing for his wound. Searching the drawers and rummaging through the wardrobe, he found a thick towel-like white cloth that he figured would be able to soak up his blood. His eyes shifted as he now searched for something to secure the cloth atop his wound.

_Well… guess I can't be picky._

Letting go of his side in order to use both of his arms for a brief bout, he ripped off a piece of the canopy of the bed. Sitting back down, he held the cloth to his abdomen and quickly wrapped the canopy piece around his torso, tying it into a tight knot. He tucked the edges of the knot into the wrapping and then replaced his shirt, hoping it would be inconspicuous.

It would have been, if not for the bloody hole that was now etched into the shirt's stitching. Cussing again, he pulled the shirt off once more and examined it.

_Ugh, now what. Can't sew. Doubt the stores have any shirts like this one. Can't get blood stains out… but I could…_

Axel did a simple thing, now. He turned the shirt around. It looked nearly identical from the back and from the front. Surely no one would notice, especially with his jacket on top. Throwing the shirt on again, he threw the jacket on over it, zipping it up, and was relieved to find that it was now impossible to tell that anything had happened at all. Relieved that he'd found a way to cover-up his misfortune, he sat back down on the bed.

He pondered what to do at this point, but quickly realized that he didn't really have any choice but to stay put. The blood was leaving him steadily, and he feared if he were to try getting up he might collapse (not to mention it hurt really badly). Lying down, he pressed lightly against his abdomen where the injury was in the hopes that the blood would cease to flow. The cloth seemed to be soaking up his vital fluid, as none of it was seeping out onto his shirt. He'd used a bit more of the canopy to clean the blood off of his arm. He was lucky none of it had gotten on his pants or jacket.

It was okay, he told himself. He'd handled the situation as best he could. Unfortunately, the extent of his efforts was not altering the severity of the pain in any way, as his wound seemed intent on causing him an impossible amount of pain. After another hour of simply laying there, he was still wide awake. The agony was a burning in addition to a stabbing, which made him concerned that he may have broken something. Breathing was painful if he drew air in too deep, so he was pressuring himself to breathe more shallowly in order to fall asleep.

On top of the pain, he was now worried. He was worried that he wouldn't be able to hide it while it healed. He was worried that it wouldn't heal. He was worried it needed stitches. He was worried he needed a blood transfusion. He was worried it would kill him. But most of all, he was worried that he would die without accomplishing a thing.


	11. The Agony of Silence

"Rise and shine, sleepyhead!" Sora said gleefully as he entered, despite Axel's requests for him to knock. When he saw Axel sitting on his bed, Sora added, "Oh, you're awake."

"Yeah," Axel said lamely. The pain was still terrible, to his despair. He hadn't gotten a minute of sleep that night, and had been sitting in this same position for over an hour. He didn't want to look at Sora out of fear of giving himself away, but he knew if he didn't do something Sora would notice. He also knew he should clean his wound, seeing as it hadn't been bleeding for a while now, but it was too late to do that at this point. He hadn't even yet managed the gumption to stand up.

"Where's Kairi?" he asked, trying to sound normal.

"She's waiting outside," Sora replied, waving a hand towards the door, opening it. Axel stood while Sora opened it, and almost gasped from the feeling that pulsed through his abdomen. Sora looked back to Axel a little bit oddly, which made Axel immediately fear that he had already noticed, but Sora left the room without another word. Very worried now, Axel followed, wincing as his wound protested. He managed to compose himself within the short walk to the exit, making his stroll seem as convincing as possible. He doubted it was, but he was trying.

"Morning, Axel," Kairi greeted, smiling.

"Morning," he replied plainly, not making eye contact.

"Where are we headed today?" Kairi asked the group.

"I was thinking King Mickey's Castle. If anyone but Axel would know where Ventus is, it'd be the King, right?"

"Ventus doesn't know him," Axel butted in quietly.

Honestly he didn't know why he'd said it. It was stupid really; in the shape he was in he'd ideally want to get in and out of wherever they were going as quickly as possible, which would mean being as easygoing as was probable. Yet he'd said it without a second thought. Perhaps it was simply instinct, as he was very aware that the dog and duck that he despised would both be there.

"Oh… you sure? He knows a lot of people…"

"Yeah." Sora looked defeated.

"What about Agrabah?" Kairi suggested.

"Agrabah? Why there?" Sora questioned, hands behind his head.

"Well, it's a merchant town, isn't it? There have to be people around to _buy_ from the merchants, haven't there?"

"Yeah, I guess so. What do you think, Axel?"

"Hm? Uh, sure. He's been there."

"Well... let's go, then," Sora said, already leading them.

They did so, and arrived within minutes, as with all their prior departures. As they inspected the area, Axel took note of how few people were around. The sand was blowing across the land, serving as the primary entity of the deserted (in more than one literal meaning) town of Agrabah. In all truth, Axel lacked fond memories of this place. The last time he'd been here his ass had been sore for a week after falling repeatedly in pursuit of a giant Heartless. The town looked different than then, though. It had been more crammed together, and the walls had been, in his mind at least, shorter. Still, the buildings were manufactured out of the same beige material, and many areas were boarded up, much like his last venture to the world.

But, really, Axel couldn't care less what had changed. He wanted to leave.

"Let's check out the marketplace first. Maybe some shopkeepers have seen him."

Kairi agreed, and Axel followed obediently. The three of them walked about, but all the stands that surrounded them in the plaza were not occupied.

"What shopkeepers?" Kairi said jokingly to Sora, despite the fact that the visit to the town had been her idea. Sora scratched his head.

"They used to be around a lot… I wonder where they went." A crash was heard, and they searched for the source. Following the sound, they found an opening in a wall with a rug covering that served as a door. Seeing as the "door" was not locked, the three walked in.

"Greetings travel — oh, it's _you_." A small man appeared from behind the counter of the little shop. There was a great array of items that covered the shelves, from pots and pans to elegant carpets as well as supposedly collectible items that Axel didn't recognize. Despite the man's tone, Axel didn't know him, so he figured — as always seemed to be true — that the man knew Sora. The man had a unique appearance; he was about half Axel's height, at around a meter tall, with a large turban on his head and a curly moustache.

"What do you want?" the man said, which surprised Axel. He'd said it as if he disliked Sora.

"Nice to see you too. Anyways, we were wondering if you've seen someone. He's blond, has blue eyes and's about my size."

"…_Perhaps_ I have," the man said, spinning a top.

"You have?"

"Perhaps, I said," the man said, turning around as the top fell over.

"Please! Tell us anything you know."

"Alright… but first..." the man whipped back around, a shiny gold lamp in his hands. "May I interest you in a lamp?"

"Agh!" Sora groaned, putting a palm to his forehead. "You're unbelievable!"

"It'll grant all your wildest dreams!"

"Forget it!" Sora said. "Come on, guys. We're going to see Aladdin."

* * *

><p>Apparently Aladdin's home was across the town — a fact Axel couldn't help noticing as they schlepped themselves across the town that's heat was stifling. Again Axel realized how stupid he'd been in talking them out of going to King Mickey's Castle, as that place was much smaller, not to mention had tolerable weather. As of now Axel was struggling to keep up with Kairi and Sora, both of whom, as well as being in good health, were also wearing lighter clothes than his. The most discouraging part of it was that, under normal circumstances, he would have simply been able to absorb the heat coming down on him; in fact, it would enhance his magic-casting ability. Unfortunately, because his magic had been locked, he could not utilize this advantage, and the heat was taking its toll on him as if he were a typical person with no affinity for fire. Axel was displeased.<p>

The group was headed towards an enormous gold structure, which was obviously owned by someone quite opulent. It seemed so far in the distance, Axel thought, as he pulled himself along. He was thankful of one thing, though, and that was that the malleability of the sand he was trudging through assisted in concealing his awry walking.

"Um, Sora, who's Aladdin?" Kairi asked as they walked.

"He's my friend at the palace. You'll see."

"Okay…" She looked around then, and after seeing no one next to her, turned back to Axel.

"Axel, are you okay?" Axel was concerned by the question. He wasn't sure what had triggered it.

"Yeah," he answered right away. "It's uh… really boiling out."

"You should take your jacket off. It's attracting heat."

"Nah, don't stress it," Axel insisted.

"But you're sweating, and you just said…"

"I'm fine," he said, walking past her. She sighed.

"Okay…"

"Sora! Long time no see!" the boy Axel presumed to be Aladdin exclaimed as Sora and the others entered. He was wearing a golden crown with a white robe-like garment that appeared to be made of fur. Axel couldn't fathom how he wasn't gagging from heat exhaustion. He was sitting on a tall throne which was adjacent to a slightly shorter one, presumably for a princess or queen.

_Who is this guy? The ruler of the place?_ Axel wondered, raising an eyebrow. He certainly didn't give off a wealthy aura.

"Yeah, hi. It_ has_ been a while… Anyway, how's Agrabah?"

"Well… not so great, to be honest. Everyone ran away and we just can't figure it out…"

"Really?" Sora blinked. "You don't know why?"

"Nope… And I can't leave to go look for them because I have to stay here and…" He seemed to be about to go on, but didn't. Then he forcedly perked up. "So, why are you guys here? And who are these two?"

"Oh, sorry. This is Kairi, and that's Axel."

"Oh, are they related?" Axel nearly choked on his own spit when he caught on to Aladdin's meaning.

"Um, no," Axel said swiftly. Kairi had given a small laugh, and Sora had reacted similarly. Axel ignored them.

"Oh, sorry. I guess we just don't see very many redheads around here."

_Pft, no wonder there. It's hot as hell out here. We'd all be burnt to a crisp… even those of us that are fire element._

"Um, speaking of hair color, have you seen anyone with blond hair? We're actually here looking for him."

"Nope. Don't see many blonds either," Aladdin replied, putting a finger to his chin. "Or anyone, right now."

"Well, we're going to keep looking for him. While we're doing that, we'll try to find out what's going on. Okay?"

"Thanks, Sora. Agrabah can always count on you."

"No problem."

* * *

><p>Regrouping, they departed from the palace and proceeded to search some more. There were plenty of places to search, as an abundance of nooks and crannies were present in the town, some of which Axel thought Sora had never been to himself, though he still seemed to know his way around pretty well. During their search, they found not a single resident, much less "Ventus". After about two hours (which felt like about twice that to Axel), Sora stopped.<p>

"I think we've pretty well combed this place. No one's here."

"I think you're right," Kairi agreed, brushing a bead of sweat off her forehead.

"I wonder where they all could be…" Sora paused, sighing. "Well, there's no point re-checking places so soon. I guess… they just must be somewhere else. But where?"

"People don't just disappear out of nowhere. There has to be a reason."

"I think we could come back to look tomorrow if we think of anywhere else. But for now I've got nothing."

"Okay, we'll call it a day."

"I also think it's a perfect day for ice cream," he said, grinning wide. "What do you say, Axel?"

"Huh? Oh… think I'll pass." He didn't look at them while he said it.

"What? Why… why not?"

"Just don't feel like it."

"But why?"

"Can we just go already?"

"…Fine."

Guilt.

* * *

><p>When they returned, Axel regressed back to his room with the intentions to give his wound a quick inspection and then sneak across the hall to the toilet to give it a washing. It actually quite annoyed him, as trivial as it was — the toilet across the hall thing. Whoever had designed the hotel, he thought, had done a poor job in not putting the room nearer by to the sleeping quarters. Every time he'd woken up to go for a quick whiz he'd had to go out in the hallway in nightclothes (as changing back into normal clothes just to pee certainly seemed to be too much effort; he'd long ago nixed his previous idea to only change by the toilet out of the inconvenience, so he just hoped Sora had learned that just because he <em>had<em> a keyblade didn't mean he should always_ use_ it), and though he knew most of the others had seen him in his pajamas, he still felt it would be awkward to encounter them in the hallway. But anyway, now it was even more of a nuisance than before.

He waited until the adjacent room was silent, then rolled his shirt up, a technique that allowed him to quickly conceal himself if someone were to come in (though hopefully they would by now realize he didn't appreciate being barged in on). Pulling the make-shift dressing up, he examined the wound and the cloth.

The fabric was bloody, for obvious reasons. The excess of blood had already dried into the stitching and was turning a sickly brown color on the side that contacted with the injury. It had stopped bleeding, at very least, though it would probably leak some more in the coming days. In order to solve this problem, Axel pulled it off, placing it back on so that the still-white side was touching his abdomen. He then knotted the piece of the bed's canopy tighter to double check its security. He felt it again to triple check, and was about to go across the hall when he heard a knock at the door, and he immediately tugged his shirt back down.

"Axel?"

"Y-yeah?" He was surprised to hear Aerith's voice; he hadn't even known that she was at the hotel today.

"Can I come in?"

"Er… yeah," Axel replied, finding no valid reason to deny her. She entered, closing the door, still standing. "Uh… something I can help you with, or what?"

"Just wanted to talk," she replied, running her left hand down her right arm.

"Uh…huh."

Uh oh. That hadn't sounded good. Just wanted to _talk_? The last time a woman had told him she "just wanted to talk" to him it had been his mother, and she'd just found out about his school report's apparent fondness for the letters "C" and "D".

"Goodness, what happened to this canopy?" Aerith asked suddenly, running the torn cloth through her hand. "Don't remember seeing it ripped like this."

"I… don't know," Axel answered, not looking at her. "Something coulda got caught in it."

"Maybe…" she trailed off. "Anyway, Sora was just saying how you're not being yourself. And I was… wondering."

A pause filled the air. The guilt was coming around again. There was no doubt to him that he was with a group of great friends. They'd only met him a week ago, yet they acted as if he was a regular member of their friendship circle or square, or whatever it was. But something was still stopping him, preventing him from saying anything.

"…Man, you guys worry too much. Give it a rest, already." Aerith seemed taken aback.

"We do, do we?" she said, and Axel heard a smile on her lips.

"Without a doubt," Axel said, forcing a smile.

"Alright," she said, her smile apparent now as she left. "I'll leave you alone, but … just remember, you can tell us if something is wrong, okay?"

He nodded, and she closed the door in silence.

Axel's smile faded as he rested his forehead in his hand.

* * *

><p>"Alright, guys. I've already picked out where we're going today," Sora announced from outside the hotel.<p>

Axel had been able to sneak across the hall and clean his wound the previous evening. It hadn't been that difficult, but he certainly was hoping to not have to do it again. He was also as certain as he could be without a medical degree that it would be best if he was stitched up, but he couldn't do that, either. This was why he knew he had to be careful not to stress it too much, or it would begin bleeding again and he would have to clean it once more. This was why he was listening with anticipation as Sora spoke.

"Oh, really?" Kairi said.

"Yeah. We're going back to Agrabah." Axel's stomach sank as Sora said this. "I realized we didn't even look in the Cave of Wonders! I mean, there's always something going on in there, right? Maybe that's where the townspeople are, and maybe Ventus is there."

"Wow, you really thought this out," Kairi commented.

"I have to use my genius for something!" Sora laughed, facing Axel. "So, you good with that?"

Axel wanted desperately to say, "No", he was not good with that at all. But he nodded anyway.

As was now typical, they returned to the ship and set off for their destination, which today was Agrabah once again. They arrived this time at a different portal, one just outside the city, in what seemed to be the lone area in the desert where greens grew. A pond was located nearby a few of the trees and bushes, so Axel soon realized it was an oasis. If not for the heat, Axel would have thought it was a nice place.

"Let's go!" Sora said excitedly, marching through the sand.

"It's that way?" Kairi asked, voicing Axel's own displeasure.

"Yeah. It's a pretty long walk, but we'll be okay… right?"

"Yeah," Kairi and Axel answered.

Sighing deeply to himself, an action which irked his abdomen, he began to walk.

Indeed, it was a long walk. Axel's side was now officially killing him, and he wasn't sure if saying that it was "killing him" was an exaggeration or not. Wiping the sweat off of his forehead, Axel closed in on Kairi and Sora, who were standing at what appeared to be the peak of the sand dunes, where they had stopped. When he arrived beside them, he gasped silently. There, sticking out of the sand like an appendage, was the same gigantic tiger head he knew, entirely made of sand grains. Its mouth was open, with stairs leading down into its innards, as if beckoning for challengers.

"Whoa, is that it?" Kairi asked, depressing her mouth.

"Yep," Sora grinned again, running ahead, descending the steps without them.

"Sora, slow dow — oh, he's gone already," she said, shaking her head. "Come on, Axel."

Following dutifully, Axel followed close behind her, a bit uneasy at the thought that the sand structure could fall atop him despite having been in it before. To his relief, the tiger neglected to collapse upon their entering. Kairi was navigating the steps carefully, searching the area, until she spotted Sora, stopped, at the bottom of the stairs.

"Uh-oh."

"What is it?" Kairi asked.

"It's different again…" Axel took a look as well. Indeed, the place looked different from when he'd been here. Drastically different. In fact, it was difficult for him to wrap his mind around the idea that the two places were the same.

"Different?"

"Well, like every time I come here the place looks different. It's weird... It's probably magic or something."

"You want to turn back?" Sora slowly wheeled himself around.

"Are you kidding? Since when have I ever said 'no' to an adventure?" Kairi smiled fondly.

"You haven't."

"Exactly. Onward march!" Forward they went, walking across the bricked floor to the dark doorway that led out of the lit room they each stood in. Sora, being Sora, pressed forward without a moment's hesitation, forcing Axel and Kairi to pursue him, though they did so more cautiously.

The room they entered was much wider and more open; it more closely resembled the Cave of Wonders that Axel was familiar with. Tall blocks of various sizes and shapes covered the area, in Axel's opinion, seeming to have no purpose at all. From here they could see another dark hallway up ahead. Sora began walking toward it, when a few Heartless appeared.

Kairi stepped back, and Axel didn't bother to move. She grabbed his hand protectively, meeting his eyes.

"Axel…"

"I wasn't gonna," he said, sighing.

"Oh," she said, not letting go. Her fingers were gently caressing his gloved palm.

Axel knew she had blatant feelings for Sora. That was a fact. So he was puzzled by the actuality that she was showing affection for him, especially after such a brief relationship.

_Maybe… maybe she's just… that type? _Axel thought awkwardly. _But, it's weird… it seems sorta… familiar, too. _

It was one of those strange feelings of familiarity, the one he felt as she held his hand. It was like when he saw someone that he recognized but couldn't place, or when he tried to think of a word he knew existed but couldn't recall at that moment. Like he was almost there, so close to remembering something, but it wouldn't come; it would just remain there, a stone unturned in the pit of his mind. And then he would forget about it, and it would be lost — but Axel was hanging onto this one. It just seemed too important to forget, who she could possibly remind him of. He recalled no girls, in his Nobody or Somebody life, who'd ever acted this way towards him.

Axel's attention fled from her hand with some effort, and he noticed the Heartless before them. There were a couple of Large Armors as well as a few Bandits; it was nothing Sora couldn't handle by himself. And nothing Axel would be able to help him with, especially in this state. After Sora finished off the enemies, he waved a hand for them to tail him through the next hallway, and while Kairi let go of his hand, he wouldn't let go of the feeling.

There were quite a few hallways that followed that appeared identical to the ones before them, and Axel couldn't help but wonder where these endless matching rooms were leading them. But then, at last, after enduring at least seven of the indistinguishable rooms, they came to a room where something was different: to their right, a staircase spiraled down into the black depths of the cave.

"A staircase!" Sora exclaimed obviously. "Let's go, guys!"

He practically jumped down the stairs, waiting for Kairi and Axel at the bottom. His hand was to his forehead as he scanned from the left to the right. They were in another room of the same bland tan color as the rest of the cave's architecture with three apparent directions to go in.

"Which way should we go now?" Sora asked, dropping his hand to his side.

"Let's go to the left," Kairi suggested, probably off the cuff.

"Well… okay."

Entering yet another darkened hallway, Axel heard Sora make a sound similar to "oh!" — a statue was before them, an ape holding a magenta gem that glowed. The look on the ape's face struck Axel as a tad demonic; it was covered with a smirk that spread the entire length of its features. But even more so it looked greedy; the way its eyes were hooked on the sparkling gem in its cold, cement hands was almost unnerving.

"I know how these work. You just have to touch it, and a secret passage opens up. Cool, huh?" Sora said, touching it without waiting for any responses.

Fear appeared in Axel's mind very suddenly, fear of what might result from the action; the area didn't seem stable, something didn't seem right. Maybe he was being paranoid, but maybe not. If he was worried rightfully, if he was in danger, it could all end right here. After all he went through: from a Somebody to a Nobody to a Middlebody, and it could all just end at this very moment. In this one instant, his life could be changed.


	12. Familiarity

When he heard a rumbling he staggered, searching visually for the source. Kairi seemed irked by the sound as well, but Sora seemed unfazed. The rumbling soon stopped, and a staircase leading downward had slid into view to their right. Axel was overwhelmed by relief, his sudden fear now dissipating.

That could've been the end, he thought to himself as he stood, as if he'd had some epiphany. As he thought about it, though, he felt even more perturbed by another realization: every moment he'd ever lived through had been just like that. Every moment had been an unavoidable stepping stone to the next, and he had no way of knowing which would be the last, or which would change everything. He'd never thought about it before — how fragile life was. How easily it could be crushed, ruined, but how difficult it was to begin it again.

"See? What'd I tell you," Sora said, startling Axel back into consciousness. His thoughts returned to what they had been previous to the events of moments before: his side hurt. He wanted to get back to the hotel.

Sora stuck out his tongue, beginning to walk down the steps, and Axel followed. The walkway was very narrow and dark, and Axel hoped they wouldn't get lost, were there any turns.

"Whoa!" Axel heard Sora's voice as he himself emerged from the dark walkway.

Prison cells lined the walls of the large room, filled with sickly Arabians. As they saw their guests, some of them yelled out, some began to cry, and others simply smiled. Axel was still in disbelief as Sora began to kick at the cells, shouting, "Come on!" and other phrases voicing vexation. Axel's disbelieving thoughts gently floated to what would result from them finding the citizens — they would be able to go back. He'd be able to sleep.

"Please help us," a woman holding a baby said, her voice quivering.

_Man, she looks seriously spooked. Wonder what could have done that to her… hell, to ALL_ _of these people. Could it be… the same thing that sicced that Heartless on us in Twilight Town? _Axel pondered this thought briefly.

…_Arghh. It hurts… Come on, Sora; let's get this show on the road…_

"How did you guys get here?" Sora asked suddenly, ceasing to bang for a few moments.

The responses were mixed, but the most prominent was also the most detailed: they remembered a noise, then there was darkness, and then they awoke here. Obviously this was suspicious, but if that was all that could be recalled it wasn't of much help. Whoever was behind this was likely to get away with it, as of right now, anyway. Sora seemed to realize this, and began whacking at the prison cells once more.

"It won't budge," Sora said sadly, hanging his head.

"Sora," Kairi said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "_Keyblade?_"

"…I knew that." Sora said, red forming on his cheeks. Jumping back ecstatically, his keyblade appeared in his hand. A blast of light erupted from the key's tip, and the cells trapping the prisoners were vanquished. More cries of pure delight left the townspeople's mouths, and several of them charged at Sora for a hug.

Axel was still looking around. Something about that rescue had seemed too easy, unrealistically easy. They were imprisoned in a chamber that could be accessed by a simple press of a button, and within several minutes all of the prisoners had been released? He felt like something must not have gone quite as planned; maybe there was some other obstacle that was meant to have revealed itself.

Sora waved for the people to follow him, and they did. Kairi and Axel submitted to following up the rear, despite the discomfort Axel had with his surroundings and his injury. When the last Arab disappeared up the steps, both Kairi and Axel were shocked — a snapping sound came from above, and a rock fell from the ceiling.

Kairi had immediately gasped, jumping out of the way.

"Whoa!" Axel exclaimed, staring in awe of the large boulder that had just intercepted them. He ran around the boulder, finding Kairi on the other side, on the ground. He bent down on a knee and winced. Luckily, she didn't notice. "Hey, you okay there?"

She was rubbing her head.

"You knock yourself?" he asked, craning his neck to look where she was rubbing.

"I'm okay," she responded, moving to stand.

"Whoa, hold it. Take a breather, alright?" He'd pressed gently on her shoulder, forcing her to be still as he glanced around the room. There didn't seem to be anything else ready to fall, but something still seemed amiss, what, exactly, he couldn't place. "On second thought, take one once we get outside. C'mon."

He took her by the hand, ignoring the awkwardness this created again. She didn't move at first. "Oh, do you need me to…" He secretly hoped not; he didn't know what he would do if she needed him to carry her. He knew he couldn't do that right now, or at least, not without a lot of pain.

"No, it's okay… I can walk," she said, standing. "I'm fine. But… thanks, Axel. You're sweet."

Axel stood still a few moments after she spoke. She smiled at him, walking past him to the staircase.

Something was odd to him about the words. They had created that feeling again, that feeling that she reminded him of someone else, someone he was trying with all his heart and mind to remember. But it felt like it was more than just "someone" that had said that to him, that it was more than just a coincidence of two girls saying the same exact thing to him — it felt like it had been her. _Kairi_ was the one that had said that to him before — that was what his mind was saying, what his mind was screaming.

But that couldn't be true. That wasn't possible.

* * *

><p>As promised, Sora led his followers back to the entrance of the Cave of Wonders, and then back to Agrabah. The three of them then went to see Aladdin to inform him of their success. He was pleased, for obvious reasons, and complimented Sora to a point that Axel may have considered it a tad excessive, which was quite a lot, as Axel considered Sora very worthy of compliment.<p>

"Well, I'm glad to be of help," Sora said, pointing a thumb at his chest and smiling. "So, anytime, alright, Al?"

"Thanks, Sora," Aladdin said, bowing. "Hey, did you ever find your friend?"

"No…" Sora said sadly, looking to Axel, who didn't look back. "Where could he be…?"

When Axel failed to jump into the conversation, Sora seemed to figure that he had nothing to say, and that this would be an appropriate time to depart. Sora's head was slightly hung due to the mentioning of his failure to find "Ventus", but it popped up unexpectedly soon after they departed from the Palace.

"Hey! Why don't we get some ice cream? We sure did a good job today, don't you think? And it's hot, so it'll help us cool off."

"Oo, sounds good to me," Kairi replied.

"Great! Come on, Axel."

"…No, thanks."

"What?" Sora exclaimed. "Two days _in a row_? What's _with_ you?"

"Nothing's _with _me. I'm just not in the mood," Axel replied, alternating between looking at the floor and Sora's clothing.

"But you were always in the mood before! Ever since we came to Agrabah you've been acting really weird."

"What, goin' senile? You're imagining things, kid."

"That's not funny. Why aren't you in the mood, really?"

_Man. They're on to me… _Axel felt bad, inevitably. _Well, anyways. Cover-up story, here we come._

"I just…" Axel paused, brainstorming hurriedly. "Eh. Something happened here with me and Ventus. I'd rather not say."

Sora sighed, and Axel wondered if the boy believed him.

* * *

><p>Yep. The injury had to go. Not only had the pain been blindingly unrelenting, but it now felt sore and had become even more sensitive to movement than it had been before. Something had to be done, he knew, but what exactly he couldn't quite say. Potions had obviously had no effect, and it wasn't like he could go out and buy Hi-Potions in the middle of the night when none of the stores were open. So that was two options that were no good. The third and final option was a healing spell. A Curaga spell would most likely make him feel better (he'd heard the spells had some limitations, but he didn't think his injury fit into any of them), but the only people he knew who would be able to cast such a hefty enchantment he didn't want to know about it. Sighing, he held his forehead in his hand, thinking.<p>

_Wait a sec. What about… Vexen's lab? Maybe he'll have some old stuff lying around that'll help me out. Like a cast or two of Curaga. _Axel then gulped. _Man, I'd better be careful though. Xemnas would… Wait._

Axel paused.

_Sora was _against_ the Organization… right? So if he's spending all this time with me… something must have happened. Did he… _

He bit his lip at the thought that Sora had eliminated all the other members. Quite frankly he was surprised he hadn't been thinking about them at all before. He must have been distracted by Roxas, he figured. He didn't care as much for the others. But that aside — had the other members had the same fate as him? Had they all been re-joined with their former selves, trying to find the last piece of their hearts? He couldn't say he wanted them all around. Roxas had been the only one he liked, after Saïx — Isa, anyway.

A memory floated into his mind as he stood up. It was Roxas's and his only day off throughout the entire year that Axel had known him. More regret pulsed through him as he remembered how he'd spent his day; he'd told Roxas he'd been sleeping, but he'd really been lying there, thinking. Axel thrust out an arm, forming a portal to his former home.

_Don't have time to be distracted by the past. Time to get going, _Axel thought quickly. _Anyways, I'd better check in at the Brink of Despair. I can't risk running in there to find some undead member staring me in the face._

Taking a few short steps, Axel appeared in front of The Castle That Never Was and gasped. A large portion of the roof of the Castle had been torn off, and the right side tilted slightly, as if it were on an axis. The bridge leading into the Castle was still intact, but Axel was weary to approach it still. Mustering up some courage, he walked briskly across it, and into the Castle he'd lived in for so very long.

Nothing's Call was filled with debris of varying sizes, which was the only noticeable change, the white walls still retaining their original white color, though several chunks were missing from the structures in front of him.

_Boring as ever, I see. Xemnas never _was_ one to redecorate._

He couldn't travel much faster than a swift walk, as his abdomen would object, sending a twinge or three whenever he'd attempt to speed it up a bit. Axel had never been the kind of guy to stress and try to rush things, but he was an advocate for short and sweet missions whenever possible. Right now he wished this trip could be short and sweet, especially considering how slowly he had to walk to compensate for all the walking he'd done earlier that day. But his present concern about running into anyone forced him to endure the mental and physical strain.

After what must have been twenty minutes, he reached the room he was searching for: the lab. Peeking in cautiously, he discovered no one else in the cluttered room. A large computer that Axel was familiar with lay directly in the center of the room, with various books littering the desk and the rest of the room. Some filing cabinets were scattered about, with a few stray papers strewn across them.

Eying the computer, Axel tapped the combination of buttons that would typically turn it on. When it didn't react, he groaned.

The rest of the room was useless. He checked the various drawers for any information on spell casting, but it seemed the place had either been picked clean or had never had any useful contents in the first place. Sighing, he now migrated to the storage room a few doors down from the lab, hoping there would be more items of use in the place.

Nope. Axel swore rather loudly at the discovery of the completely empty storage room, as he was now fairly certain there was no one around but himself. He sat down at the chair in the room, leaning his head against his hand.

_There could be something in my room, _Axel considered._ Maybe I have a Mega-Potion or something. That's gotta help… right?_

He stood, groaning yet again as he realized that he had become so exhausted that he was forced to limp. Thankfully, his room wasn't far from the storage room or the lab, so as he walked he was driven by the knowledge that it wouldn't be much longer. He was approaching the quarters designated for sleeping.

Honestly, Axel had always been thoroughly bewildered as to how Xemnas had decided to arrange their individual rooms in the castle. The rooms were divided into three sections, one to the east, one to the west, and one to the north, plus Xemnas's own quarters, which were now behind him, in the south. The sections were obviously not selected by rank, as Xigbar's room was located completely opposite to Xemnas's own, which sat far beyond where Axel was headed. Or maybe that just meant Xemnas found Xigbar grating.

After he thought about it, this almost seemed to be a theme, as on the same side in which Xigbar stayed Vexen, Larxene, and Demyx were all stationed. While Axel didn't find Xigbar or Demyx particularly annoying, he couldn't help but notice the possibility, especially considering the presence of Vexen and Larxene. To be quite frank, Axel hardly regretted letting Vexen "off the hook", and Larxene, he had to admit, he probably wouldn't have minded not having around, either. Axel himself was in the section that was neither the farthest nor the closest.

_Hey, that almost seems plausible. The boss man divides up the rooms by our location on the annoying scale_. He laughed a little at the thought, but quieted quickly after the pain worsened in his side.

Fortunately, he'd just arrived at his room. He leaned against the doorway for a few moments after turning the doorknob, looking at the boring room he'd spent — no, wasted — so much of his life in as a Nobody. It remained remarkably unscathed compared to the rest of the castle's wreckage, with only the front window broken with pieces scattered across the floor. He walked over to the east wall of the room and began to shuffle through his drawers.

Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. A few empty potion bottles were the only exceptions. Besides that, nothing. Axel sighed.

There was one last place that might prove helpful to him, and it was quite a ways across the castle. In fact, it was very near to where he'd started, so he felt incredibly stupid for not thinking of it earlier — the library. Primarily Zexion's safe haven, the library housed a wide variety of books, some of which were compiled by the Organization members themselves, and or Ansem.

_Forget this. It's shortcut time, man._

Snapping his fingers, Axel formed a corridor, reappearing adjacent to the library door. He thrust the doors open. The place was even more wrecked than the majority of the rest of the castle; all the books were distributed across the floor, along with torn pages and broken spines. Light from the large window seeped in, brightening the pile of ruined literature like an illuminated junk yard.

Axel kicked the pile, sifting through the texts, searching specifically for a spell book. Perhaps one of the books would teach him a simple way to heal his injury, or essentially provide some other quick fix.

_Heartless Encyclopedia. A Guide to Nobodies. The Secrets of the Heart. The Truth About Naminé. _Axel picked up that last book, staring at the cover. He'd read this book, back when … back when… Axel made a puzzled look as he opened the book.

_Looks like Vexen wrote it, _Axel thought, scanning the text (or at least, he'd spotted the words "nonsensical camaraderie" and felt it safe to assume so).

_I've definitely read this. But… why… Agh…_ Axel clutched his chest, cringing._ Ugh... Feels like one of those times where I'm going to suddenly remember when I'm taking a dump or something… _

_Man, why's it hurting like this outta nowhere?_

He threw the book back into the pile, a little puzzled when the pain began to fade again. It wasn't coming from his wound; it was coming from his chest… from his heart?

He stood up and began sifting through the books that remained on the shelf. A thick one caught his eye, which bore a white Nobody insignia on the spine. It appeared to glow luminously. He pulled it out to take a look.

_The Replica Program, _it read. An overwhelming pain overtook his head and chest now, and he fell to the floor.

_What the hell is_ wrong_ with me? _he screamed mentally, pulling himself back to his knees — when he heard a movement in the room.

…_Uh-oh._

Everything was hazy from the ache, but Axel could barely make out the Organization's thick black coat contrasting with the solid white wall of the room.

His obvious question (who was it?) was answered with the cloaked person's next movement — he summoned a keyblade within his hand. The keyblade was unmistakable despite the mist that was blocking his sight. The light seeping in from the window reverberated from the blade's metallic base, and would have blinded Axel were he not already having difficulty seeing. Despite the trouble with his eyesight, he could still barely make out Roxas's blue irises, and through squinting was aware that Roxas was moving closer to him. The blade was coming. Closer. Closer. Closer, until Roxas was standing so close that Axel would have to crane his neck to meet his eyes.

The blade was lifted, and it came down, hitting Axel hard in his injured abdomen, causing him to cry out by instinct. He gasped, thrusting a hand to shield his injury, but this proved to be a futile effort. Roxas knocked him aside effortlessly, with more strength than Axel had ever known him to have.

Axel wanted to shout. He wanted to scream at Roxas, ask him why he was doing this, why he now hated him so strongly. Had he really fractured their trust so severely, he wanted to ask. But his own physical state would not allow him to do speak, and he loathed himself for it.

With one simple whack, Axel had been knocked fifteen feet across the room. Axel grasped for the ground, pushing himself up, but he remained too dizzy to stand. So, over and over, Roxas smacked him with the blade, causing blood flow to increase steadily as more cuts were torn through Axel's aching body. In his right mind, Axel knew that he was just building for the big finale. Axel closed his eyes.

Roxas held out the keyblade one last time, and Axel knew he was going to die.


	13. Savior

"Get away!" A yelp was heard as Roxas was struck, and he bounced back about three meters, arms flailing as he recaptured his balance. "Leave him alone!"

Axel opened his eyes, unable to believe what he'd heard. There was Sora, his own keyblade in hand, fighting his own Nobody. Roxas was wise, however — he fled upon regaining his balance, hastily forming a dark corridor.

"Hey! Coward!" Sora shouted, running towards the portion of the wall that Roxas had disappeared from.

"Sora, leave him," Kairi's voice said. Axel felt her hand on his back. "Hey, you okay?"

"Ugh," Axel couldn't help but groan as he pushed himself onto his knees. The cuts were nothing; his abdomen was screaming. He heard Kairi gasp, and then felt her hand beneath his chest.

"You're hurt," she said, her mouth becoming ajar as she observed the amount of blood that was now on her hand.

Axel hadn't the energy to respond.

Sora had still been staring at the wall where Roxas had disappeared from, and turned back to the two of them.

"Whoa!"

"Sora, we have to take him back. He's bleeding really—"

Too tired to hold himself up any longer, Axel collapsed onto his stomach. He had so little energy left that he was unable to even release a groan from the agony that this caused. His eyelids felt unusually heavy, and he found himself giving in to their wishes.

"No, Axel, stay with us!"

"Curaga!"

Axel blinked, his eyes suddenly under his control again. A green circle had formed around him, and the blood that had been escaping him had ceased to flow in that moment. It was an extraordinary thing to Axel, considering the pitiful amount of help a potion had been to him. The pain was lessening now; the spell was obviously gradual. When the circle disappeared, apparently having done all it was going to, it felt like perhaps the skin had been repaired, and some of the internal damage was all that remained. Gawking, Axel pushed himself onto his elbows. All of the small cuts he'd had previously had now disappeared.

"You okay?" Sora asked, kneeling next to him. Axel craned his head in Sora's direction.

"Yeah," he replied, standing completely, though he staggered. The younger boy gave him a little support.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Hey, thanks—" Axel said, declining his head to look at the drying blood on his shirt.

"What were you _thinking_ coming here by yourself?" Sora asked, tone darkening. Axel scratched his chin, shifting his jaw. Honestly, the boy's tone irritated him. Somehow he still felt he could take care of himself, even after the events of just moments ago.

"Sora's right, Axel. That was really reckless. I mean, look at how bad he hurt you…"

"What were you _doing_ here anyways?" Sora asked, obviously dumbfounded. "And why?"

"Um…" Axel paused. Despite his irritation, he didn't want to go off on them and seem unappreciative.

"Axel—"

"Hold on, let him catch his breath." Axel breathed in a few times, clearing his throat. He began to speak quietly and a little gruffly.

"First question… um… guess I wasn't. Second, I was… uh, browsing. Checking out some books for useful info. Ya know."

"Why couldn't you 'browse' in Traverse? And do it during the daytime, with US?" Sora was shaking. "You… you really don't care, do you?"

Axel looked to Sora.

"You really don't care about anything. You don't care about yourself, and you don't care about us." Axel heard the hurt in Sora's voice as he said it. He seemed to be holding back a sob, and Kairi placed a hand on his shoulder. Axel was speechless. "You know, I thought… I thought you were a nice guy when we met, but… I guess I was wrong."

The guilt had become all-encompassing. His arms hurt, his legs hurt, his abdomen hurt — everything was causing him pain. Upsetting other people hadn't caused him nearly as much trouble as it had in just the last week, other than with Roxas. And he knew why, now. Conversely to what Sora had said, what had changed was just that — he _did_ care.

"You don't understand," Axel said quietly after a while. He cleared his throat again, detecting the surprise on their faces.

"What don't I understand?"

"Ahh, how do I explain this…" Axel paused and then continued softly while turning his eyes back to the younger boy's. "I was… I was a Nobody for a _long_ time. A _decade_, long time. And the thing about Nobodies is we _can't _care. No hearts, y'know? And when you're a Nobody, no one _else_ cares what you do, anyway. You weren't even supposed to exist. So you just get used to no one caring, I guess."

"That's…" Sora began, his irked face softening promptly.

"Hey. I didn't say that for you to feel sorry for me. I was trying to explain."

"Sorry," Sora apologized, "but that must be hard. Having no one care about you."

Axel sighed slightly to himself.

"It's not so bad," he comforted. "Remember, you don't feel anything anyways. Can't get upset about stuff like that. Got it memorized?"

"Yeah," Sora said plainly.

"So… how'd you guys know where I was?" Axel asked out of curiosity.

"We, er." Sora was the one looking uncomfortable now.

"Merlin put a Trace on you," Kairi said for him, though she looked away as well.

"A Trace?" Axel furrowed his brow.

A Trace was a spell that would allow selected people to be aware of the location of the Traced at all times by accessing a window in their minds (meaning it was basically the least intrusive way of stalking people). The window would provide an outline of the area the Traced was in, and the Traced would appear as a blip on the blueprint somewhere. Additionally, because the Traced were tracked by their genetic makeup, beings with extremely similar makeup could be tracked all at once. This included Heartless, Unversed, and Nobodies, and was often the means by which they were exterminated swiftly in missions. Obviously, it was not something Axel wanted on him.

_But I'll have a fat chance of getting them to remove it, especially after this little run-in. Damn it. That sneaky old man, _Axel thought, sighing.

"Guess that makes sense," he said finally.

"Now it's our turn. One more question," Kairi said.

Giving a tentative glance to the two of them, Axel sighed for the probably the tenth time that day.

"Shoot."

"Who attacked you?"

"Yeah, they were wearing the Organization's coat. Who _are_ they?"

"Not sure myself," Axel lied after a while. Kairi and Sora looked to each other and then sighed themselves.

"Okay," Kairi said, accepting his answer, but Axel couldn't tell if she believed him or not.

* * *

><p>He was forced to take the next few days off to recover. He had been right; his wound had sealed over but hadn't completely healed. That said, he was feeling a little guilty about the fact that they had saved him. This was why he had promptly thanked them and proceeded to behave himself by resting for the coming days as they had asked, though, secretly, he still felt like they were babying him. He supposed he was being unreasonable, but he still couldn't get himself to admit he'd needed their help, even though he knew how stubborn he was being. He kept thinking of it as being his own choice, but he was aware of his own bias towards this thought. The truth was, he <em>had <em>needed their help, but out of some pride or guilt he just couldn't acknowledge it.

They'd seemed frustrated with him at first, but by the second day they seemed to have gotten over it after he apologized. He had noticed, though, that Aerith was keeping a notably closer eye on him. Under normal circumstances he would have been irritated by this, but he didn't want to seem ungrateful, so he kept his mouth shut. She, after all, had helped him out on several occasions already, and in the last few days had sewed his shirt back together and somehow managed to get the bloodstains out of it. He owed her for that. Axel had soon realized, however, that it might have been more cost-effective to just buy a new shirt.

After they had returned to Traverse Town, the group of them had settled into different rooms in the hotel all scattered about on one side of the hallway. He had noticed that he hadn't seen much of anyone besides Sora, Kairi, and Aerith. He considered the fact that it could perhaps be that there was something going on outside of his own exploits. Not that he cared; he was just pleased that they left him alone in his room — as he would have displeasured from sharing, especially with these people he still felt uncomfortable around — though he figured that those of them that had access to his Trace would be checking it constantly. He'd blown it on that front, he knew.

_No more privacy for you, Axxy-boy. Oh, no sirree. You've got them so paranoid you're going to have them tailing you whenever you take a freaking leak,_ he thought, shifting his position in the Red Room bed. Still, on a more positive note, thankfully he only appeared as a blip, thus deeming any watchers incapable of telling what he was doing, wherever he was.

Axel closed his eyes, exhaling deeply as he ran a hand through his spiked three of them were to begin searching for "Ventus" again the next day. Earlier in the week Axel had taken considerable pleasure in removing the dressing he'd created for his injury, and was even more pleased to see the dried hunk of blood removed from his torso. Injury aside, his encounter with Roxas at The World That Never Was had skewed his view on the search. It just felt like a wild goose chase, he kept thinking. Roxas only revealed himself when Axel was alone. This was apparent. That said, at this point it would be impossible to get out on his own; the others were watching him a good deal too closely. He knew what he'd have to do; when he'd get around to it was the question. But right now, all he could think about was that incessantly awkward feeling he had, this sad feeling of longing.

His nostalgia as he lay was almost too overwhelming. He'd always been an avid fan of vacations, yet this time around he felt less pleased by it. He figured that it might have had to do with the fact that he was doing the searching voluntarily; there was always an unattractive quality to obligatory things. But when he had been a Nobody he had felt. He knew because, looking back, he'd felt all these emotions not that long ago, through his one and only friend — through Roxas.

So, was it easy to think that his one and only friend, the one who he'd learnt to feel through, wanted him dead? No doubt, it wasn't. And when he thought of what might happen when they met again, he felt a dark, strange sort of fear: it wasn't like he was afraid of Roxas; it wasn't his friend he was scared of — he was afraid of what he himself would do. When under pressure and when unnerved, Axel knew he was the most vulnerable. So, no, Axel wasn't afraid of Roxas. Rather, he was afraid of himself.

He was telling himself he would never do it, especially without the Organization around to pressure him with the knowledge that he'd be turned into a Dusk if he didn't. He no longer had to bear that burden; the only reason he even tried to do it before was because of the threat against his own life. Now that reason was gone, and, he told himself, he had no reason to do it. It wasn't fair to his friend, especially if the boy, along with everyone else, didn't recall Axel's existence. It didn't matter that Roxas had attacked him, it didn't matter that he'd hurt him. He couldn't do it, he would never do it. Never.

Axel cradled his head in his hands. He felt loss. He felt dread. But through it all, he felt obligated. He was obligated to discover why his friend would act toward him in such a way. He was obligated to discover why his friend wanted him gone, wanted him dead. And, Axel was sure, if he were to die — this time, it would be real.

* * *

><p>The next morning, still feeling the duty to get to work, Axel went to the Green Room rather than waiting for Sora to approach him in the Red Room. He knocked harshly, leaning on the wall beside the door. He heard a sound of puzzlement, suggesting the confusion Axel was not surprised to hear. A clatter of footsteps followed, and the door opened, revealing Sora in black nightclothes. Axel wondered if staying here was like a vacation for him.<p>

"Axel?" Sora asked, blinking his eyes open. "Man, you're up before me? That's a switch. Could you not sleep or something?"

"Uh, something like that," Axel answered. That probably had been part of it. He'd slept for basically three days straight, after all. Surely there was some point where he'd had enough. "Anyways, uh, I guess I'm looking to make myself useful. Y'know? Get my head back in the game."

Sora glanced into the room, leaning behind the door, apparently to read the clock.

"Even _I_ think this is pretty early to go out, Ax," he said, yawning. "But fine, since you're _finally_ planning on making yourself useful."

"Whoa. Ouch."

"Heh," Sora said, smiling. "Hey, go wake up Kairi, okay? I'll be out in a sec."

"Uh —" Sora closed the door in his gawking face.

_Ugh, _Axel grunted. _Why do I always get stuck with the icky jobs?_

Kairi's room was a couple rooms over, Axel recalled as he closed the Green Room door. As always, the remainder of the hallway was empty, and Axel could hear the soft tap of his own boots as he scurried, albeit slowly, toward her room. Upon reaching it, he lifted his fist daringly and then froze himself in this position. He was afraid of the potential backlash he might receive from abruptly waking a young girl — he'd personally never done it before, and his visualization of what might happen was not pleasing.

…_Eh, well… Do the honors?_

His knock was a steady and simplistic rap.

"Hey, uh, Kairi?" He heard a quiet "Hm?" be emitted after he voiced her name, and he ceased knocking, standing there with his hands by his side awkwardly.

"Oh, hi, Axel," she greeted, yawning herself. "Wow, you're up really early today. Do you need something?"

"Er, we were going to start looking."

"At eight o'clock in the morning? What're you two running on?" She asked the questions while smiling.

"Uh, I don't… know." He'd tried to think up a sarcastic retort, but had come up with nothing. Still, she laughed, even though Axel didn't get what was funny.

"Okay, Axel," she smiled again. "Be ready in a bit."

Axel nodded, and turned to walk in the other direction, when she grabbed his arm for what felt like the hundredth time, and he stiffened anxiously. He could now recognize the feel of her palm against his bare limb.

"Hey… are you sure you're ready to go today?"

"'Course," he responded with slight hesitation.

"Okay," she said, smiling and closing the door.

About fifteen minutes rolled by after Axel returned to the Red Room, waiting for his companions. He lied down on the bed out of boredom, throwing his hands on his head as he softly took in slow breaths. He was pleased that Kairi's waking had gone smoothly (personally, he'd imagined a gigantic monster with quite a resemblance to Godzilla eating him alive, as this was his experience in watching Larxene being awoken by Demyx, though he supposed Larxene and Kairi were very different people, in retrospect). However, it concerned him a little that Kairi had asked him if he was ready, as if when she looked at him something was visibly wrong.

Spotting the wardrobe in the corner, Axel walked toward it, bending down in order to better see his face in it. Sure enough, his skin appeared to be somewhat void of blood, as it emanated a colorless glow. Running a hand down his wan cheek, he frowned.

_I really gotta get out more, _he thought. He was pale, relative to some people, but from the shade he'd grown to accept for himself he seemed pretty close to normal. He would have thought he'd have gotten a tan from those days in the desert, though, but at the same time he acknowledged that he was probably lucky that he hadn't gotten sunburnt, being red-headed. Though Axel couldn't remember if he'd had fair skin when he was young. It was one of those small things that he missed knowing about himself, like his favorite color, or his best school subject, or the kind of things he'd liked to read. It was one of those things, that, in its absence, made him feel like he was a stranger in his own body, like it was someone else's memories lodged in his brain, not his — after all, how could he be the same person if he didn't even know the simplest things about himself?

Someone had told him once that it was the nuances that made a person unique, that it was the slight differences between people that separated each individual from the rest of society. It hurt him to think about it, because, though it sounded sad, without these nuances, without these subtleties, he had trouble considering himself a true person.

He sat on the bed and lay a while until there was a thump-thump on his door. Standing up with a small sigh, he twisted the doorknob and opened the door to see the two youths waiting in the hallway.

"Ready?" Sora asked him.

"I was ready before you, if I do so recall," Axel replied, closing the door behind him as he began to walk toward the hotel's exit.

"Hey, where we headed anyways?"

"Oh, right. Kinda an important detail… Erm, well, we're going hunting for mister mysterious black-hooded guy. So… back to The World That Never Was."

"What? We're not looking for Ventus anymore?" Sora asked, shocked, tilting his head.

"Nope. Like I said. Mysterious black-hooded guy. Got it memorized?" This had been a choice he'd made early on, immediately after he'd come back from the Castle. By going back he might be able to get some information about the presumed demise of the other Organization members, or maybe even about himself. Roxas wasn't showing his face again with his companions around, so Axel felt he might as well use the time he was with them to try to solve the other mystery he'd been presented with — his own existence.

"Why?" Kairi asked.

"I'd like to know what he's up to. And I think he just might know something about… Ventus's whereabouts."

"Why would he know that?" Sora asked, scratching his neck. "You said you didn't know who he was."

"And I don't. That's the thing — I'd like to find out."

"Well…o…kay," Sora replied obediently.

Axel waved them forward, and they marched.

To be quite frank, Axel had never liked The World That Never Was. It was dark and gloomy, a combination that harshly contrasted his own personal preference — sunny and bright. But so was his fire nature. On top of that, the Heartless inhabiting the city were relatively countless, which was a real nuisance when one was in a rush to get somewhere. While this was no such situation, Axel was still finding himself thoroughly irked by their incessant appearances in their path. Hastily, Axel kicked one in the face, knocking it into and eliminating three others as Sora finished off the pack.

"Nice kick."

"Heh, thanks."

Memory's Skyscraper was more luminescent than Axel ever remembered it being. Something about the structure had caught his eye, a trick of the light, he thought, then qualified — it was no trick. It was a feeling. This was probably why it appeared different than he remembered; this was the first time he'd ever seen the building while simultaneously sporting at least a piece of a heart. The inkling trickling through his bones was of familiarity. Axel felt, no, Axel knew, that something had happened there, in the bright light of this skyscraper. Suddenly, he wondered who paid for all the electricity that made it that bright. Shaking his head and at last pulling himself out of his transfixion, he noticed Sora, who was also gazing at the scraper blankly.

"Guys?" Kairi asked, noticing their stares and snapping them out of it.

"Axel…" Sora addressed, still hypnotized. "You've been here before… haven't you? That's how you knew to look in the Castle's library…"

"Maybe once or twice," Axel said, shifting uncomfortably.

_Okay, it's not _totally _a lie. I mean, I've been here once or twice… every day for ten years._

"Why would you come to such a terrible world? How did Organization XIII not catch you?"

Axel had to suppress himself from scoffing.

"It's not _that _bad around here. But I guess you've got a point, it's probably not the first place most people'd pick for a hangout. As for the Organization… I don't think they had much interest in an average Joe like me."

"Still, it's weird. I would have expected them to capture any chance they got."

"Really? They that bad?" Axel had to overpower a smile as he said this.

_Back to the good ol' days of playing dumb._

"Yeah, they're definitely bad news. Good thing I got rid of them, right?" Sora grinned, pointing his thumb to his chest.

"Oh, yeah?" Axel played along.

"Yep. All thirt… well, not really. I only beat," Sora counted on his fingers, humming all the while. "Six."

_Six? _Axel thought, baffled for a moment. _Wait, wait. He doesn't remember Castle Oblivion, right? So that's… Zexion, Lexaeus, Vexen, Marluxia, and Larxene. Five. Five plus six is eleven. Thirteen minus eleven is… two. Two members. Roxas… and me._

"Where'd the other seven go? They all flew the coop?"

"I don't know. Someone else took them out, I guess."

"Then how do you know they ain't still around?"

"'Cuz of the 'Proof of Existence' room in the Castle."

Proof of Existence. Of course. Xemnas had manufactured that room to attest the obvious. Nobodies could influence the future, and therefore, existed. All that was needed was a shrine to remember those that had done so. Axel suddenly felt something almost bordering on a trance.

_I existed. I know I did. I…I _do _exist. I…_

_The lady, the shopkeeper. It was me and Roxas that kept her prices down,_ he thought assuredly, then frowned. …_But I've got no proof that that was us. The lady obviously didn't remember me. And it's not like I can ask Roxas to go ask her if she remembers _him_._

"Uh, Axel?"

"Huh?" Axel returned to a conscious state, and his eyes focused on Sora's. "Er, yeah?"

"I dunno, you spaced out."

"C'mon, let's go."

He elected to check out the one and only library first, pushing the case that he hadn't been able to search it completely during his last trip, for reasons that seemed obvious to his companions. Walking particularly eagerly, as if he were in a rush while he was in fact not, Axel entered the room without a second thought as to what might await him within it. First of all, it didn't matter; whatever it was, Sora would take it out; second, Axel knew that Roxas would only come out if he were by himself. He gulped at the likely thought that Roxas was probably watching him at this very moment. Sora and Kairi had followed him as he loomed over the books that remained in a scattered pile in the center of the floor, their bland white covers identical to that of the library's walls.

Bending to his knees without a word, Axel began sifting through the books. Sora was quite plainly puzzled that Axel had wished to come to this room first, if even at all, and fell to his own knees a little disparagingly.

"What're we looking for?"

"There's gotta be something that'll help us out somehow. Got it memor…" Axel trailed off, picking up the same heavy book he had days before. _The Replica Program._ He could hardly lift the book with one hand.

_I don't remember there being this much stuff about a Replica Program. All I remember is the Riku replica. But, I mean, you can't fill a book this big with stuff on one replica, can you? _Axel scrunched his features, thinking. _Were there… more? Hell, Saïx would have told me for sure, being second-in-command and all …that prick._

_He would've told me, right?_

Flipping open the cover, Axel scanned the page for a brief second before he gasped. An agonizing pain had shot through his chest and head as he'd attempted to read the page, just as it had before. He saw a blur of black and white — the text on the page — and then he'd been forced to look away. As expected, his cohorts noticed.

"What's wrong?" Kairi asked instantly, touching his shoulder as if by instinct.

"Urgh, nothing," Axel assured, persevering through the discomfort. Opening his eyes again, he took in the page.

And once again, failed. The pain shot through his body once more, with twice the power of the first, and Axel could no longer stand the sight of the book. Shutting his eyes immediately, he felt it with his hands, gripping the book and tossing it a couple meters from the remainder of the pile.

"Whoa, what?" Axel heard Sora say, followed by a slight patter of footsteps. "You really hate…"

Sora had bent over beside the book Axel had thrown, and picked it up, contorting it in his hands.

"_Fairytales _that much, Ax?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Axel moaned out more than asked, cranky from the pain.

"This is a fairytale book," Sora said, holding the book up in his hand as Axel looked to him.

"What?" Axel said, furrowing his brow. Axel stared at the book. "You're… you're sure that's the one I picked up?"

Rummaging on the floor now, Axel shuffled through the rest of the books in front of him. No more _Replica Program_. He searched it again. It wasn't there. Axel stared briefly at the book in Sora's palm.

_That book's got something to hide. I know that's the book I picked up. Someone probably put a charm on it… like they didn't want anyone to read it. But… who's they? Now _this_ is getting interesting._

"Gimme that," Axel demanded, snatching the book from Sora's hand.

"Why are you so interested, in it? It's just a bunch of old stories," Sora protested, but handed it over.

Axel flipped through the pages, finding that he no longer had to wince, and he was forced to conclude that the book no longer visibly contained the information that he sought. Sighing half-heartedly, he tucked the heavy book within his shirt and jacket and proceeded to pull the zipper upward in order to seal it away within his clothing. Perhaps he could find some way to deactivate the charm.

"You're _taking_ it? You want us to read it to you before bedtime?" Sora teased, laughing quietly.

"Laugh all you want," Axel responded plainly, avoiding both questions he'd been asked. "C'mon. Let's go."

"You don't want to look anywhere else in here?" Kairi said, bemused. "There are a lot more books."

"Well that's just too bad, eh?" Axel replied, walking out of the room and into the colorless hallway. "Say, would you mind taking me to that, er, what was it… 'proof of omniscience' place?"

He had to know. That was all. His presence in the room would prove his existence. He needed — no, he _craved_ — that knowledge. From his point of view, it was a perfectly reasonable thing to want. He wanted to know he existed, that he wasn't only a part of some astoundingly realistic dream.

"Proof of Existence, you mean?" Sora repeated. "Why would we go there?"

"Yeah, that. Well, if mister mysterious black-hooded guy is a member of the Organization, he'd be represented there, now wouldn't he?"

"He's got a point," Kairi admitted.

"Argh, Axel," Sora regressed, shaking his head. "Fine. It's this way."

At last, he was on his way. Even after just a few steps, what they were encountering along the walk was familiar to him. But it wasn't only the physical traits of the rooms that he felt acquainted to, also the feelings they evoked in him: they were feelings of wonder and the unknown; he had never known, as long as he'd been a Nobody, what his place had been in this universe, and this is what he was feeling once again, like he was wrapped up in an obscure form of déjà vu. Roxas had enabled him to feel this way, and it was only because of Roxas that he was feeling this way now.

But now, at last, he was going to find out — that they both had existed, that they both still existed.

At last he was on his way to the place that would prove his existence, once and for all.


	14. Ruins of Lives Past

Sure enough, after a relatively brief walk, Sora led them through the Hall of Empty Melodies. There was a great deal of debris in the hallway and they each had to do some tactful maneuvering in order to avoid all of it; all but one of the ramps was completely crushed, and Sora insisted on holding Kairi's hand as they both trekked up it. Axel was really beginning to feel it now. They were almost there; it was almost time for the big reveal. They were approaching the doorway, and as they did so, Axel braced himself.

The Proof of Existence room was immediately recognizable due to the wide array of colors that filled it, and it was even more easily characterized by the large insignias and rubble on the floor. This was definitely the same room that Xemnas had designed and that Axel recalled. However, to Axel's shock and misfortune, the left side of the room had collapsed on itself — the side on which Axel's own relic existed in his memory.

Axel began staring at the rubble-covered floor directly in front of his questionable remnant, opposing his fingers uncomfortably.

"Hellooo? Axel?"

"W-what?" Axel hadn't been listening. He glanced to his partners.

"How're we supposed to tell which one's him? Did you get a good look at his weapon?" Sora asked.

"It was a keyblade."

Axel looked to Kairi, shocked.

_She saw? _ Axel realized, eyes widening._ Why didn't she say something before? That's not just a teensy-weensy easily overlooked detail. That's a bit more than an interesting tidbit. It… could change the whole game plan._

"A keyblade?" Sora repeated, as shocked as Axel. "Are you _sure_? Like, _sure_, sure?"

Kairi nodded. "It was a keyblade. I didn't even _have_ to see it. I could tell by the shine… it reflects into your eyes a lot."

Sora's mouth was hanging open; he was clearly dumbfounded.

"But… but… Axel, didn't you see the weapon?"

"I… didn't really get a good look at it," Axel said, scratching his neck innocently.

"You didn't _really get a good look at it?_ The guy was pointing it right in your face!"

"Well, _'scuse me_, I was a bit too busy fearing for my _life_ to get a good look at what exact weapon I was gonna get killed with."

"Don't argue," Kairi intervened quietly. "It was a keyblade. I know it was."

"How could that be…?" Sora's head hung as he thought, obviously unable to think of a situation that would warrant such an occurrence. "WHO?"

_Man, Roxas. You always were a troublemaker._

"Sora. Look," Kairi said, tugging at Sora's shirt sleeve. She held out an arm, and pointed to the right side of the room, on the floor, to Roxas's headstone. Sora's face changed once more as he slowly walked to the scorched remains. He was shaking slightly as he reached out a hand and gently stroked the head plate of the tomb. He drew in a quick breath as he read the text inscribed upon it aloud:

"The Key of… Destiny."

"It must be him," Kairi concluded. "His weapon is a key… and look, his is the only one that's blue. That means… he's the only one that's still alive."

"How could that _be_? I thought…" Sora seemed to be confused, and Axel didn't know why.

His fists were clenched tightly, as if he were truly trying to ward off the dark with his own thoughts. Slowly, he released them, and stood up.

"We have to find him," Sora said assuredly. "_Whoever _he is."

* * *

><p>Needless to say, Axel was disappointed he'd not been able to confirm his own existence. In fact, he was devastated. He could feel his blood circulating through his chest; he needed to know; he needed to find out. His problems had practically doubled with Sora's discovery of Roxas. Axel knew Sora. He'd watched him through all of Castle Oblivion. Sora would find Roxas if it was the last thing he did. For this reason, Axel couldn't afford to let Sora find him first. No, at this point he needed to drive them off the trail. If Sora found Roxas, the risk was too great that someone would be harmed.<p>

Axel considered, though, after pondering it for a while and forcing himself to look at the positives, that it was actually a blessing in disguise that they hadn't been able to see his remnant. After all, he hadn't even considered what he would have said to them once they discovered that his weapon was exactly the same as the one displayed on the relic. He also hadn't thought of what he would say if the relic was still blue, signifying that he was still alive. He certainly wouldn't have been able to explain that, either. The two of them would surely have come to the conclusion that he was the eighth member that the relic was intended for. It was clear to him now, after having thought about it, that he'd rushed into that without thinking — a form of action he couldn't afford to employ any further.

The group had continued searching through the castle, but Axel had been careful to drive them away from any places he considered might help them. He was feeling a bit of the characteristic guilty gut-pain for sending them on such a wild goose chase, but he'd improved a bit at ignoring his feelings.

_I guess you get better at shoving them down with the experience_, he reasoned as he let in a deep breath, feeling the fairytale book press against his abdomen.

"Sora," Kairi said, placing a hand on her friend's shoulder, "I don't think he's here."

"But…" Sora began to protest, but stopped himself. "No, I guess he's not."

Sora was standing stiffly, his fists clenched in determination. His head hung slightly, rocking back and forth with his careful breathing. He was nowhere near giving up, Axel knew, but with some prompting, he would give up for the day.

"We'll check it out again tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah."

With a slight shove, Kairi managed to get Sora to revert and head down the stairs toward the Brink of Despair. Axel was relieved they were finished; he needed some time to think up a game plan. Kairi and Sora were walking briskly, much faster than Axel was walking himself. Now that he'd been re-immersed into the white, empty castle, Axel had newfound gratitude toward his own decision to leave the place. It was so lifeless that it was agonizing. Leaving was probably the best choice he'd made in the last ten years, even though it'd been basically involuntary. This was aside from befriending Roxas, of course.

_Roxas… _he thought simply.

"Uh-oh." Axel glanced up from the transparent floor leading down the Brink of Despair and winced.

Rain.

If the dull and empty status of the castle wasn't enough for him to hate the place, there was also the rain. It was fairly frequent in the area, which was to Axel's dismay during his decade-long stay at the world. Axel remembered the last time he went out in the rain. Axel didn't like to remember the last time he went out in the rain. Essentially, rain didn't sit well with him being fire-natured.

He could handle water, sure. He _had _to be able to handle water. Drinking water was vital to life, and that had never bothered him, cold or not, albeit he could only shower in warm water and he always had to dry himself off very quickly once he was finished. But even more vital than drinking or showering was the fact that the stuff made up sixty percent of his body. So, yes, Axel could handle water. But he didn't like to handle it, in some situations, and storms was one of them.

It was only made worse by the fact that a storm had overseen Roxas's departure.

"Wow, it's really coming down," Kairi remarked.

"Here," Sora said, taking off his jacket and giving it to her.

"It's okay, Sora."

"Maybe we should uh… just wait this one out," Axel suggested, attempting to be casual as he scratched his neck.

"What, can't handle a little rain?" Axel bit his tongue and furrowed his brow. He grunted, about to lash back, when Kairi responded for him.

"Sora, it's _pouring_."

Sora seemed to take her comment into account, as he turned toward the transcendent skyline, fiddling with a spike of his hair. Puddles were already forming where crevices were present; each crack was filled with water, ominously ready to overflow. Sora sighed.

"We could be here all day, though. It doesn't look like it's gonna let up."

It was Kairi's turn to sigh.

"Fine, I guess it's better now than later."

"Wh…" Axel outstretched an arm as they descended down the rest of the Brink of Despair.

"C'mon, Axel. What're you waiting for?" Sora asked, holding his jacket over Kairi's head as they prepared to depart.

"Uh… look," Axel said, exhaling a deep breath. "I don't really _do _rain."

"'_Do_' rain? What do you mean?" Sora cocked his head in the curious way that only he could.

"It… puts me out, man."

"Puts you…"

"Sora!" Kairi exclaimed, turning to the boy wide-eyed. "His element is fire. He can't handle water. It _puts him out_."

"Whoa whoa whoa," Axel interrupted, "I can handle water. It's just the cold, salty droplets falling from the sky in large quantities that gets me. Got it memorized?"

"Oh, that's right… I forgot." Axel bit his lip.

"Obviously," Kairi commented. "But, what do we do?"

"Hey, look, it's no problem," Axel said. "I'll just… uh… go by my trusty dark corridor."

"Dark… corri… what!" Both Kairi and Sora yelped as Kairi continued. "Is that how you've been getting around?"

_Didn't think that one through, did you, genius?_ Axel thought, mentally smacking himself.

"Well, er. Sort…of…"

"Are you _crazy_? Do you even care at all about your heart?" Sora inquired dramatically. Axel grunted. They were babying him again.

"Gimme a break. 'Course I do. Now, unless you've got any other bright ideas, that's how I'm going back. Enjoy the rain. See ya."

"Ax —"

But Axel had already stepped through the portal. As it sealed itself shut, Axel could barely make out the echoes of their desperate calls. He ignored them, instead taking in his new environment. For some reason he'd directed the portal for Betwixt and Between. It was strange to him, both the fact that he'd felt an urge to go there and that he'd been killed there (perhaps that was why he'd felt compelled to come). Despite the knowledge of his death, he had still stopped in mid-transition; instead of hurriedly forming another portal out of the place, he'd halted and surveyed the area around, even though he was rather familiar with it. He knew his heart could get corrupted. He knew the area could be housing Heartless that were ready to kill him again. But even that knowledge didn't stop him; he was standing, head craned toward the world's sky and taking in the faint light without even caring what could result.

_Some things are weird like that_, Axel thought, closing his eyes. _You_ know_ they aren't good for you. Heck, you know they could kill you… But you do them anyway._

He opened his eyes again.

_Why is that?_

He stood there for a little while longer, just relishing in the pleasant calm the place was providing. Then he let his head crane back into its normal position and formed another portal to the Green Room. He stepped through quickly.

He was not met by what he was expecting (a friendly greeting?), but rather, a fist in his face.

"Wh —" Axel staggered backward, tripping over the rug and collapsing onto the floor.

"Wh —Axel?" It was Aerith. She'd placed a hand over her mouth, the other outstretched for him.

"Ow," Axel muttered, rubbing his now-aching cheek and eye.

_Chick really packs a punch, _Axel had to admit. She'd managed to knock him down in a single blow, and a painful one at that.

After a few moments, Axel quickly realized that it he had made yet another stupid decision in deciding to appear right in the middle of the room, the first reason being that something such as this might happen and the other being that he could have very well intruded on something "private". He'd best, he knew, not do something like that again. It had also been rather hypocritical of him, he acknowledged, considering how he himself had been bothered at the thought of being barged in on.

"I'm sorry… I wasn't expecting…" she sat down next to him, but neglected to touch him directly when he waved a dismissive hand at her. "Why were you using a corridor? And where are Sora and Kairi?"

"Agh…" Axel said, still rubbing his face. "They should be here any minute. Assuming they… agh… run fast."

"Why would it be assuming that? And you didn't answer my first question. And how… how do I know I can believe you?"

"Hey," Axel dropped his hand from his face, then put it back again upon finding he had removed it prematurely. "They're gonna show up, I swear. You just gotta give 'em a sec. Got it memorized?"

"You still…"

"I don't like the rain, alright?" She paused visibly for a moment.

"You're willing to risk your heart to get out of the rain?"

"Frankly, I am." When she shook her head, Axel sighed. "Boy, the price of freedom sure is steep, eh?"

Aerith slowly turned to him, seeming to become interested by the comment. If he were to be completely frank, he didn't know why he'd said it. Perhaps he was trying to distract her. Perhaps it was something else. It had been like many of his other thoughts lately — it had just popped into his head.

"What… do you mean by that?" she asked slowly.

"Well…" Axel began, inwardly thinking he didn't know what he meant. There was such an impasse between him and the words that it felt like he hadn't even been the one who'd said them in the first place. He improvised. "Nobodyhood was no walk in the park, y'know. And Middlebodyhood ain't much better. But I'd like to see how this round plays out. Where I end up." He paused, tweaking a sideways smile. "Not givin' up just yet."

"Not…" she turned away from him. "Giving up…"

"You got it."

"Axel…"

"Yeah?"

"You sound exactly like my old boyfriend."

"Oh?" Axel cocked an eyebrow. Now that was something he had not thought about in an intolerably long time. Boyfriends — or, as was more appropriate for his own taste — girlfriends. As a Nobody, such longing was non-existent. Without the capacity of feeling any emotion, such desires were not present. Why feelings like these hadn't uncovered themselves since Axel had regained a part of his heart or in his friendship with Roxas he didn't know (though it may have had to with the fact that Axel didn't like Roxas like_ that_).

He looked at Aerith out of the corner of his eye. He mentally acknowledged that she was an attractive young woman, as he had noted early on. Yet, he had felt nothing in that way towards her, at least up until this point. It wasn't like he thought he'd "changed sides" or anything like that, but it was a strange thing to realize that he had lost a significant amount of drive, much less to realize it after it appeared to have been absent for quite a while.

After thinking about it, though, he did realize a few moments later that she had definitely been the only female he'd encountered in recent memory that was even close in age to him: there were only three other women he'd actually spoken with, namely Kairi, Olette, and the ninja girl (whose name was evading him — he was pretty sure it was something like Loofy or Toofy).

Well, it still wouldn't hurt to add a little playful banter.

"So, uh, charming smartasses are common around these parts, I see?" Axel attempted, noticing the long silence he had assisted in creating.

"I guess so," she said, a faint smile on her lips. "Are they common around where you're from, too?"

"Uh…" Axel hadn't been expecting that, though he couldn't say what he had been expecting. "Don't really see much of where I'm from anymore. But probably not. I'm incomparable, after all."

He'd said it with a sort of sing-song voice in an attempt to continue his buoyant attitude, but she didn't really seem amused. He guessed afterwards that it had come out sounded cockier than he'd intended.

"And where is that? That you're from?"

"Er, actually, on second thought, I don't think _anyone_ really sees much of it anymore," Axel qualified, tacking on an awkward laugh. This wasn't going as he'd intended at all. He was a bit of a rusty at this flirting business, he supposed.

"You dodge questions a lot, don't you?"

"I hadn't noticed," Axel answered, jokingly hesitant. This wasn't getting anywhere. "Alright. Radiant Garden."

"Rad…" she sat erect abruptly. "Axel!"

"Great, what'd I do now?" Axel stiffened, affronted by her exclamation. He leaned back as if he expected her to punch him again.

"Radiant Garden… I'm from there too, Axel. And… it's… restored."

"Really?" Axel leaned in closer. She nodded. "That's… interesting."

Aerith seemed taken aback.

"That's…all you have to say?" she observed. "That's _interesting_?"

"'S not like it changes anything," Axel told her honestly.

"It's not like…" She began to repeat his statement, but then shook her head discontentedly. "But why wouldn't your friend be there? Doesn't it give you another good lead?"

Axel shifted his jaw slightly, altering his position by the bed in an attempt to convince her that he was thinking about it.

_Roxas isn't there. He's following me. But if I say no, she might start thinkin' I'm not looking anymore. Can't do that. _Axel continued acting, now frowning from real frustration. _Man, this is all so pointless_.

"I guess," Axel said finally.

"You guess? What's with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I just feel like you…" She was staring at his eyes with a look of bewilderment. "You always say something different from what you mean."

"'Scuse me? You saying I'm a liar?" Axel replied quickly, which he realized soon after might seem suspicious.

"Maybe," she replied too carelessly, "but I can't tell if you just don't even know yourself what you mean."

Axel scratched his chin, neglecting to answer, quite honestly a bit confused by the comment. He was saved from replying by the door opening.

"Axel!" Sora yelped immediately. His fists were clenched, presumably due to Axel's hasty exit, though it seemed to be more in frustration than anger. Axel wasn't completely sure where he got this implication from, but something about his complexion looked more worried than angry. That unavoidable feeling of guilt was surfacing again, but Axel had developed considerably more control over it. Basically, he shoved it so far down that he was practically sitting on it.

"Howdy," Axel raised a hand to his forehead in a mock salute, letting loose a smug grin.

"Are you insane?"

"Sora, I told you, calm down," Kairi said, gently touching his shoulder.

Sora's clenched fists collapsed after Kairi spoke to him. He was still frowning though, and looking strangely at Axel.

"Sora," Axel addressed calmly. "I'm fine. Everything's fine. I swear, I won't do it again. 'Tis an emergency procedure. Don't get your panties all in a bunch, alright?"

"Hmph," Sora grunted, sitting on the bed. This was followed by a series of awkward moments as Axel stroked his own neck gently back and forth, as always an attempt to assuage the guilt that was encompassing his Middle-being. He was honestly surprised he'd received no retort to the panties comment.

"Hey, why don't we go grab some ice cream?" Axel suggested casually, holding a hand in the air. Sora looked eagerly, apparently cheered by the suggestion, but then faltered upon meeting Axel's eyes.

"You all of a sudden want to go now? What's the deal?" Sora eyed him suspiciously again.

"What do you mean? Isn't this the typical way I beg for forgiveness?" Sora gave him a look. Then he rolled his eyes.

"You think you're so funny, don't you?"

"You want ice cream or not, kid?"

"Fine."

"Sheesh. You know, you're —"

"I know, I'm the only kid you've ever had to talk into getting ice cream."

"So…" Axel said, another smile starting at his lips, "you got it memorized, do ya...?"

Axel smiled, really smiled, for the first time in a while.

* * *

><p><em>Today makes 12. <em>

It felt like the sun was up for longer than it normally was. While they arrived at the tower at different times every day, there was a regular amount of sunlight that Axel expected from the outing, and this particular outing had seemed to draw on, despite being of about the same length as on any other given day. It might have been that he had a great deal to think about with Radiant Garden now thrown into the mix. But there was something else there as well; it almost felt like an irrepressible push. In the depths of his heart, he could sense something threatening, something about to happen. A sense of foreboding.

"Something wrong, Sora?"

"Huh? Oh, no," Sora said, scratching his neck lightly. "It's weird… I feel like I'm forgetting something really important."

"You know…" Kairi paused similarly. "I do too. I feel like we used to do this. But I'd have no idea when. What do you think, Axel?"

"I, uh," Axel stammered. "Maybe it just reminds you of something else, sorta like this, that you used to do?"

It was odd to him that she would think it was familiar. Sora, he could imagine, but Kairi, too? He couldn't figure what would make her say that, unless she was lying, but she didn't really seem like the lying type. He didn't know what she could mean.

"I know," Sora said. "Maybe it just reminds us of the old paopu tree trunk."

Kairi apparently considered it. She ran a finger across her popsicle stick.

"I don't think that's it," she replied. Sora thought about it too, craning his neck towards the sky, gaze following the migrating clouds.

"Me neither," Sora replied.

"Axel." Axel was taken aback when she addressed him again. "You were… in my dream last night."

"Oh?" Axel said, looking to her.

"What about me?" Sora asked, also looking to her. She seemed surprised.

"No… it was just him." Her brow was furrowed, and Axel was becoming concerned. She'd become still as soon as she'd brought it up. "And he…" She stopped.

"'He' what?" Sora asked. He was looking concerned now too. "What did he do?"

"Oh… I'm sorry," she said sincerely, turning away, "I just… he…"

"Did he hurt you?" Sora conjectured, narrowing his eyes.

"No, no. I was… here, in Twilight Town. And… well… he came, and he took me."

"He _took_ you?" Kairi placed a hand on her left arm.

"He just… grabbed me, and took me."

Axel averted his gaze abruptly.

"Really?" Sora said. The word remained in the air for a few moments before Sora's face changed, and he smiled. "Gee, Ax, Kairi sure thinks you're a bad guy."

"No I don't!" Kairi exclaimed defensively. "That's just what I dreamed. Axel, I don't think that, I swear."

They both looked to him. Sora's smile faded after Axel didn't respond.

"Hey, I'm sorry; I didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"Nah, I'm good," Axel threw in hurriedly.

"If you say so, I guess," Sora replied, and then they were quiet.

The sun was setting.

Axel was a lot more interested in Radiant Garden than he had let on. It was his home, after all. It was only natural for him to wonder about it. Nothing would change from him going there, of course, as the town he had known was long gone, but he was still curious to see what it was like, what'd changed since he'd last been to Hollow Bastion. It wouldn't help with his search for Roxas, but it would help in his search to find himself, perhaps.

_Maybe the memories will help_, Axel thought, surprisingly optimistic. _Maybe I'll figure out some other game plan_.

It was unlikely, but it was a possibility. And the thoughts were at least distracting him from the feeling of inevitable doom in the search for Roxas.

Radiant Garden aside, what Kairi had said had been concerning. It almost sounded like she had remembered what he had done to her, which frightened him. He didn't know what he would say or do if she all of a sudden came up to him and told him that she remembered what he did. He'd have to watch closely for any more signs that she had remembered anything else. But, he figured, she seemed to only think that it was a dream, and that certainly wasn't the same as remembering. And, who knew, maybe it had been just a dream.

Other than that, he again felt like something was wrong. His hand was drawn to touch his chest in response to the slight ache, and he found the book he'd taken. He'd become so used to the feeling of it against his torso that he'd forgotten it was there. Curious now, Axel flipped the book out of his jacket, letting his eyes graze the cover of it as he lay into a comfortable resting position once more.

_Book of Folklore_, it read.

_Folklore… _Axel repeated in his head. He flipped the book open so quietly that the pages barely grazed his gloved hand. It was inscribed in a very blotchy text, as if it had been written by hand in old-fashioned ink rather than printed. The page he'd turned to was the table of contents. Here listed were the stories contained within the book: _Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast_…

A final title at the bottom caught his eye: _The Useless Twin._

_Can't say I've heard _that _one before_, Axel thought. _It's definitely got a different vibe from the others. _

Next to the title there was the page number: 27.

Removing his glove, Axel flipped to the page. On it there was a picture drawn in a style reminiscent of stained glass. It was split in half, with a young girl and a young boy on each side, both facing outward, towards a different door. On the left side the page there was a black-haired girl whose neck was bent so that her bangs concealed her face. A frown was spread across her face as she sat directly beside a pile of two shiny objects, both discernible as keys. To the right there was a blonde boy (the two certainly didn't look like that alike, so they must be fraternal) who was standing straight with his arm stretched out towards the door, his hand encased around another shiny object — yet another key.

_That key!_ Axel sat up, grasping at his chest until his hand felt the cold metal through his glove. Tugging it out of his shirt and throwing it over his head, he held the key up to the drawing.

_They're freaking identical_, Axel realized, examining the teeth of both keys. _What're the odds of that being a coincidence?_

Not very likely. The teeth of keys curled inward, forming an odd sort of semi-circle, like a half-moon. The coloring of the key was identical as well, with the teeth reflecting a tint of gold and the body a sharp silver. It took Axel about five minutes to completely absorb the bizarre occurrence.

_Okay. They're the same. I get that. Now, as to _WHY, _exactly, is where things get a little fuzzy. _He pondered for a moment. _Well, there's gotta be a connection. You don't just find half-moon keys in every nook 'n cranny. The book's gotta be bewitched. But… why's it bewitched? Is there… something else?_

Axel flipped the book over and looked at the back. The book lacked an informative blurb, as well as any publishing information. He flipped back to the page.

_More importantly…_ Axel reasoned. _What's this got to do with me?_

_Guess there's only one way to find out._

Letting his eyes trail slowly from the intriguing picture, Axel began to read.

* * *

><p>Axel blinked.<p>

He stared at the picture on the last page for a while. He found himself blinking a lot, and he rubbed his eyes in an attempt to null the now incessant batting. Axel's eyes faltered towards the picture as they refocused: it showed nearly identical to the first page, but in this image both of the children's hands met in the middle, through the bordering bars, holding a single key.

It had been easily the most depressing fairy tale he'd ever read in his life. Basically, there were these two fraternal twins — one boy, one girl — but the parents hated the girl because she was somehow less apt than the boy, so she was treated harshly.

So, one day, the brother decides to break the sister out because he's tired of watching her suffer. They try to escape their town, but they both get caught and end up in this peculiar cage game: the two of them must test the keys in the piles beside them while flames threaten their lives. Then, for some reason, only one of the children may survive.

The girl is the one that finds the key, but she gives it to the brother through the bars. All she asks of the brother is for him to "Never forget."

Understandably, Axel was fairly dumbfounded. That was the furthest thing Axel could think of from the standard "happily ever after".

_So… She got burned to death. Well that's pleasant. Gotta love fairytales, _Axel thought, messing with his hair a little out of discomfort. _It's funny though. I almost feel like I've heard the story before, as ridiculous as _that _sounds. Don't recognize the name, though. And I still have no clue why the key's in it._

Axel looked back to the key. He yawned. He decided right then that he was much too tired to think and that he'd sleep on it.

He leaned back, placing the book on the bedside table. He fell asleep within a matter of minutes, much faster than he had any of the days prior, though nothing was all that different about today as opposed to the previous days, as far as he could tell. The only difference he could think of was that he'd read the book. So, maybe the story helped him sleep in that it was something that perhaps his parents had done for him when he was a child.

Regardless of whether or not it was true, the thought of it saddened him, though it wasn't like he would've missed it all that much — it was rather in the fact that it was another one of those nuances, another one of those small, easily overlooked details about himself that he wished he remembered.


	15. Nostalgia

Though he had no trouble falling asleep, his sleep was a plagued one. He had a surprising amount of difficulty staying asleep, and when he wasn't, his dreams were disturbing. He just couldn't get that image out of his head, that image of that poor girl burning to death for the sake of her brother.

_Why did it have to be fire? _Axel thought miserably. _Gives me a bad rap_.

He rolled over onto his side, glancing at the clock as he tried to sleep: 3:08. He moaned, slamming the pillow over his head. He woke up again at 8:45, and he decided he couldn't take it anymore. He was getting up. Frankly, he was beginning to frighten himself; he'd been waking up early so frequently now.

_I'll sleep in tomorrow, _he promised himself. _Anyways, now what_? _Um… how about…_

Axel glanced to the book sitting on the bedside table. He stood up and flipped the light switch on, taking the book onto his lap. He rubbed his eye. It still ached from the blow Aerith had dished out.

"Axel?" Axel wasn't expecting to hear his name, and choked on spit as a result.

"Yeah?" he asked, jumping to the door and opening it to find Aerith.

"You _are _awake — oh, goodness," she said upon meeting his eyes. "Look at me."

"Wh…" He stared at her blankly for a few moments.

"I'm sorry, Axel," she said. "I gave you a black eye."

"Wh… wait, are you serious?" Axel responded, placing a hand to his left eye, where the punch had landed. He'd been aware that there was some swelling — on second thought, who was he kidding, the eye felt like he'd grown a nicely sized potato in it — but he hadn't heard anything about a color change. She was looking at him guiltily, her hand on his jaw. "Oh, hey, don't sweat it. I deserved it anyway, I, uh…" He paused. In his experience with girls they had always liked it when he admitted fault, so he added, "… shoulda appeared outside the door. That was pretty dumb."

"I'm still sorry," she said after smiling slightly, her hands intertwined. "You should put some ice on that…"

"Nah, it's fine. So, anyway…" Axel said awkwardly. "Something I can help you with, or…?"

"No, I just had this feeling you were awake."

"A feeling, eh?" Axel repeated again, leaning against the doorway. He noticed she was looking under his arm, as she was much too short to see above. "What're you…"

"Were you reading that story book?" she asked, her left eyebrow going up.

"Well… erm," Axel hesitated, turning pink. "It's not like I have anything better to do this early. You know."

She nodded neutrally, still looking beneath his arm. She then looked to him, an oddly serious look in her eyes.

"Axel," she addressed, her eyes narrowing a little. "Are those really fairy tales?"

"Huh?" Axel looked back at her dumbly. "What do you…"

She raised an eyebrow slightly.

"Whoa, 'scuse me? Fat chance! What do you think I am?" He breathed. "Well, thanks for the _kind_ words, but I really—"

Her eyes became remorseful, and she grabbed his wrist as he pulled away. "No, no I didn't mean it like_ that_. Axel, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. I'm just trying to figure you out."

_Well, keep trying, _Axel wanted to say, but instead he managed to tone his response down to a mere scoff.

"Are you… are you going to go to Radiant Garden today?"

_She changed the subject, _he thought exasperatedly. He sighed. _Women._

"I _might _have been considering it."

"I think you should. I think it'll help you."

_Help me, _Axel thought. _They're always talking about 'helping' me. Help me with what? It sounds stupid, but… I almost feel like… I'm more lost than when I started. _

He nodded lightly.

"Oh, and by the way, the others are already awake too… it looks like no one slept that well last night. They're next door, so you can go ahead and head out whenever you're ready… okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

Axel shut the door, looking back to the book he'd laid on his bed. He was dressed already, so he had no other considerations to make before leaving. But he still felt hesitant.

He managed to bring himself to leave soon after, and he headed to the Green Room next door. He knocked lightly, and gave them a few moments to let it sink in.

"Oh, hey, Axel," Sora greeted, smiling. "Whoa, where'd you get the black eye?"

"Uh…" He'd forgotten about it already, in mere minutes. He was sure they'd seen it the day before, but he was forced to conclude that it hadn't been prominent enough for comment. Kairi, who was sitting at the table, glanced up at the exchange. "…It's nothing."

"Doesn't look like nothing…" Sora said, staring at it like it was some great oddity.

"What happened, Axel?" Kairi had stood up and walked closer to him.

"It's fine," he answered quickly, tired of the subject. "I'm looking to head out."

"You didn't go out by yourself, did you?" Sora asked.

"I just did something stupid is all," he responded, sharpening his tone. "Anyways, I'm ready to go."

"Okay…" Sora replied, seeming at least mildly satisfied as craned his neck even closer to Axel. He looked back to Kairi and spoke to her, asking, "So, are you ready?"

"Yeah," she replied.

"So uh…" Axel spoke, "I was thinking we'd take a little… side trip."

"A side trip?" Kairi repeated curiously. "What're you up to?"

"'Up to?' What's that supposed to mean? C'mon, I'm a good boy —"

"Yeah, _right _—"

"_Most _of the time," Axel said, unable to resist a smile. Kairi chuckled.

"Where to, and why?"

"To Radiant Garden, and just because it's been a while."

"Why Radiant Garden?" Sora asked. "You could go exploring any place. We really need to find that guy that attacked you —"

"I'm not from 'any place.'"

"Wait, so you're from there?" Sora confirmed. Axel nodded.

"Really?" Kairi spoke, her eyes widening.

"Yup."

"Axel, I'm from there too." She'd met his eyes.

"Oh, yeah? Good to know." Axel said, even though he was unsure as to _how _that was good to know.

"How long has it been?"

"Since what?" Axel asked stupidly.

"Since you've been there, silly."

"Huh? Oh, well uh…" Axel knew he'd been to the outskirts, but he didn't think that really counted towards what she meant. "I'd say a good, what, ten years? Give or take a bit."

"Wow, really? That's a long time," she commented. "But… I think that's about how long it's been since I've been there, too."

"But, Kairi, you've been to Hollow Bastion. It's almost the same —"

"— It's not," Kairi said simply. "It just isn't."

There was a bit of a silence as these words registered with Sora, and then Kairi continued speaking.

"I don't really remember much about the gardens the way they were before," she commented sadly. "What about you, Axel? Do you remember anything?"

"Uh," Axel ran a hand along the roots of hair on his neck. "Bits and pieces. I left when I was older." After he said this, though, Axel felt somewhat stupid in that he had kind of stated the obvious, because if it had been ten years since both of them had been there, obviously he would have been older than her ten years ago.

"As old as us?" Sora suggested. "Why'd you leave?"

_Well,_ _this funny thing happens when your heart gets deep-sixed by darkness. Basically, you get swiped out of wherever-you're-from and dumped into the World That Isn't to serve Xemnas, the number one ranking douchebag of the whole round-up he calls the Organization. That may have a _tiny _bit to do with it._

"Eh, something suddenly came up."

"What! You're not going to tell us?" Sora scowled. "Why am I not surprised?"

Kairi giggled as Axel grinned.

"So, you got it memorized, do ya?" he said, winking casually. "Anyways, how 'bout we get this little detour on the road?"

Sora seemed plagued for a few moments, but after a short bout of thinking he conceded.

* * *

><p>Axel was surprised upon their arrival at Radiant Garden, for several reasons. The first was due to the fact that the portal opened up into a house rather than the open space he had become accustomed to. The second was because there was someone else <em>in <em>the house with them. Not looking in or spying, just standing there plain to see. And the third reason he was surprised was because he recognized the person in the house.

"Merlin? What're you doing here?" Sora asked.

"Pardon me, boy, but it is _my _house. It'd be more appropriate if I asked _you_ that very question," the wizard said, not taking his eyes off the book he was reading for longer than three seconds.

"Oh, yeah," Sora said, putting his hands behind his head. His cheeks had flushed red. Axel examined the room rather than acknowledging the wizard's presence. The room was excessively messy, cluttered thoroughly by books sitting in a collected pile across the room. Besides the many books, however, there was very little worth noticing, excluding an open picture book leaning against a raised table that glowed brightly.

_Wait, so the portal just goes straight in here? _Axel thought, noticing the green portal that they'd popped out of. _Man, what if we'd come in at a… bad time?_

Axel scrunched his face a little as he imagined the worst-case scenario. _Yeah, I think I'd pick another portal next time. Ya know, just to be… safe. _

"Well, we were taking a break from looking for Axel's friend. And Axel's from here, so he thought he'd stop by, I guess."

"He's from here, you say?" Merlin said, at last looking away from a book he held in his hand.

"Why does everybody think that's so interesting?" Sora asked, crossing his arms.

"Because it's interesting that none of us have met him before," Kairi answered.

"Oh." The four were silent awhile, when Sora turned to Axel, who was staring at the sparkling book. "Are you ready to go?"

"Just a sec," Axel said, turning to the wizard who had returned to his book. Axel cleared his throat.

"Hey, uh," he began awkwardly, "I was wondering if I could… work out a bit of a deal so I could get my hands on some of my magic."

"Pardon?" Merlin raised his glasses to look at Axel. Axel bit his lip as he noticed the wizard staring at his left cheek, though he was pleased when no comments were made on it.

"Look, it's just for defense. I think this," Axel pointed to his bruised eye, "can explain somewhat."

"What is it you're going on about, boy?" Axel blinked.

"Uh, in summary, I'd like my magic back." There was an awkward silence that followed as the wizard's eyes stared back at Axel's. Soon they drifted back towards the ceiling and he placed a finger to his bearded chin.

"Oopsy daisy," Merlin said after a while. Axel blinked again.

"I… I apologize, I must have forgotten to deactivate that charm. I was only intending to have it activated during the recovery period…"

Axel almost fell over. _He _forgot_? _That_'s_ _his excuse? For crying out loud…_

"You…forgot?" Sora gulped, choking in a laugh. "Ha, ha, Axel! You got all stressed out because he _forgot_! Merlin, you shoulda seen him, he was going nuts—"

"Whoa, _whoa_, careful where you're treading there, _keyblade master_. I might just have to burn you to a crisp."

"Heh, you wouldn't," Sora said, grinning, "stand a chance."

"I don't like where this is going," Kairi commented from the sidelines. Sora grinned.

"Don't worry, Kairi. He won't fight me. I couldn't even get him to play an actual struggle match with me."

Axel's eyes widened slightly at this.

_He knew? _Axel stiffened, astonished. _What… what else does he know?_

"So erm," Axel intervened. "Can I, uh, have it back now?"

"I've already undone it, boy," Merlin said, not looking back up from his book.

"You have, have ya?"

"Yes. Charms are easy to deactivate; it is the initiating that is more difficult."

"So, does it work, Axel?" Sora asked, looking to Axel's empty palms.

Axel pulled the trigger.

A smile tugged at his lips when he felt the cold metal through the palms of his gloves.

_Man, have I missed _you, Axel thought, twirling the weapons between his fingers.

"Hey, they appeared!" Sora observed.

"Thanks, gramps," Axel said, chuckling in pleasure. "Let's go."

Before waiting for a response, Axel marched out of the house and into the neighborhood. Axel could make out Sora and Kairi's shoes tapping against the stone floor as they followed.

"Geez, Axel, slow down!"

"Yeah, wait for us, would you?" They panted as they reached him. He'd stopped to survey the area, which he recognized as close to the main plaza of Hollow Bastion. He turned his head in the various directions, observing the many aspects of the world, when a flash of light appeared directly in front of him. Heartless.

The smile further stretched. He held up his hand, and with a snap of his fingers, the Heartless were disintegrated into the air.

"Axel! What're you doing?" Sora exclaimed.

"Just clearin' the path—"

"You're not supposed to do that," Kairi said quietly.

"I was never supposed to leave this place, either, but that ship has sailed, now hasn't it? I couldn't resist." He paused, but didn't give them a chance to reply. "But don't worry; I'm on my best behavior from now on, got it memorized?"

"We'll hold you to that," Sora replied.

"Yeah, yeah," Axel taunted, walking to the left and around a corner. He again heard Sora and Kairi following him, and maintained himself at a steady pace. He'd reached the underpass that led to the plaza, and a look of bewilderment came over his face as he arrived to see a gigantic swarm of people surrounding the shops. Axel halted, absorbing the crowd as well as the many shops he did not recognize. As a Nobody he could not walk into the plaza without being noticed, so he had not been here in years.

_It looks… pretty much the same, I guess. Wonder what these people are doing here_.

"Wow, _another_ crowd?" Sora commented. "Gee, Axel, you sure lead us to crowded places a lot."

"What can I say — people just can't get enough of me," he joked quietly. "C'mon, let's check it out."

Axel began pushing his way through the crowd, but it proved to be hardly any trouble because of his superior height.

"Hey," Axel approached, placing a hand on a finely dressed woman's jacket. The woman turned around, and glanced up into his eyes, her own widening.

"D-Don't hurt me. Just — take whatever you want."

"Huh?" Axel said, blinking. The woman held out her purse. "Lady, I don't want your money."

"Axel," Kairi said, finally reaching him with Sora beside her. Sora remained silent and still as Kairi approached Axel. The woman looked to her curiously. Kairi placed a hand on his upper arm, and signaled for him to back off.

"We were just wondering what's going on," Kairi said to the woman gently.

"Oh," the woman said, smiling as the words left Kairi's lips. She still seemed hesitant, but proceeded to respond, albeit slowly. "Well… the shops have been releasing a lot of their old merchandise. It's pretty valuable, so we all came down to try to get a steal."

"Thank you," Kairi said, nodding and then dragging Axel away. Sora remained quiet, but followed. Axel was quiet.

_I guess… it really has been a long time since I've been around actual people, _Axel realized, a bit _people get scared by…_ _someone like me._

"Axel —"

"Look, I just didn't realize, alright?"

"I know you didn't. But you have to be aware of it now. You can be pretty intimidating."

"Yeah, Ax," Sora added. "We know you're not gonna do anything, but _they _don't know that. Big guy in black approaching? I think the instinct is to run for it."

"Okay, I get it, I get it. I'm scary."

"Wow." Both Sora and Axel turned to where Kairi was standing, gazing in a shop window.

"What is it, Kairi?" Sora said, leaning in beside the window she was staring through. Axel followed as well, though he had to bend in order to see through the low window. Through it he could see shelves full of toys, sweets and clothing spread out on racks scattered throughout the store. The walls were colorful, and various toys were functioning from inside. Axel squinted to get a better look.

"A toy store!" Sora said with glee, running in, a bell triggering as he entered. Kairi looked to Axel, and smiled, following Sora.

Axel followed slowly, taking his time to examine his surroundings. His eyes creeped about the shop as he entered. There was a single counter to his left that was completely backed up and was impeding on the clothing area of the store. The line was comprised of mostly children and their parents, but he spotted several adults and teenagers waiting as well.

_Think I'll pass on waiting in _that _line,_ Axel thought, raising an eyebrow slowly.

As he continually creeped about, he found Sora at the back of the store, tinkering with several toys at once. The wall in front of him housed a wide variety of toys, from robotic Heartless and Unversed to keyblades and key chains to classic toys like trains and dolls.

"This is so cool!" Sora said, eyes gleaming as he wound up a toy Mandrake and watched as it spun. Kairi was holding a keychain in her hand. Axel's eyes scanned the shelf.

_Lady wasn't lyin'. This stuff was all around when I was a kid. Wooden keyblades were the craze, but I was always more of a…_ Axel squinted, but then widened his eyes. He withdrew the item on the uppermost shelf, twirling the familiar toy within his fingertips. _…frisbee man myself._

"Hey, Axel, what kind of Heartless are these?" Sora asked, pointing to the Mandrake. "I don't recognize any of them."

"It says on the box they're called 'Unversed'," Kairi said. "It sounds kind of familiar. What are they, Axel?"

"Eh?" Axel glanced over, twirling a Frisbee. "Well, they're practically the same thing. Unversed, Heartless — tomato, tomahto. The point is you attack 'em until they disappear —"

"What are those?" Sora asked, standing up and pointing to Axel's hands.

"Just some frisbees," Axel said, spinning one of the toys in between his fingers.

"You gonna buy them, or something?" Sora asked. Axel was silent.

"Nah," he said after a while, placing them back on the top shelf.

"Okay…" Sora said, scratching his head. "What do you want to do now?"

"Dunno. I don't really remember much of what we used to do."

"We?" Kairi repeated, and Axel flushed a little red.

"Was it V —" Sora began.

"No. It wasn't." Sora sighed. Axel had to give him points for persistence.

"Why don't we just… go for a walk?" Kairi said. Axel and Sora looked to her.

"I think," Sora replied, "that's a good idea."

* * *

><p>The group did just as they said they would. No words were spoken during the afternoon stroll. Axel found the silence to be strangely settling, as if it were something he had been longing for desperately. He felt himself becoming calm for the first time in a long time, almost apart from himself, as if at peace. The sun was sitting gloriously in the sky, the towers of the world's castle barely fitting amongst the rest of the vast landscape. The all too familiar sparkle of the water near the world's fountains was like none Axel had seen since he was a teenager, and he couldn't stray from all of the numerous other reminders of his past — of Isa. But soon the at-peace feeling began to disperse, replaced instead with feelings of wistfulness and desire.<p>

Axel missed Isa a great deal. Saïx was passable. He couldn't help but return to thoughts of how Isa had changed, how he had truly become another person, Saïx. But this led him even further back, into how he, the ever-hypocritical Axel, had changed as well. And this led him to the simple fact that _everything_ had changed. He no longer lived at his home, and no one possessed more than a couple weeks' worth of memories of him. And, worst of all, everyone that had ever been his best friend was no longer with him.

Red light was cast upon Axel's face as he frowned, looking down on the gardens before the castle gates. He let in a deep breath of the castle air, and as it pierced his nostrils, an odd feeling fell through him — of remembrance. Suddenly it felt like someone exploded in his head, like something deeply withheld in his memory had finally decided to resurface.

He saw his younger self, and he saw Isa. Isa was looking at him strangely, his head slightly tilted, like something was amiss. Squinting his eyes at Axel's younger being, Isa opened his mouth:

"Lea?"

At first Axel thought he had imagined it, that he'd simply imagined Isa saying it in his memory so vividly that he'd fooled himself into thinking it was real, and that the two voices he'd heard were really one.

But, when he let his eyes drift downward, he found that he was looking into blue irises he had since long forgotten — and he remembered.


	16. Day of Reckoning

_Roxas?_

"Lea? It's me. Don't you remember?"

_He's not Roxas…? But he looks… No. He's…_

"Ven," Axel whispered, as he realized it himself. The questions were invading, all of it suddenly coming back to him.

"Lea! It _is_ you!" Ventus exclaimed, running closer, a look of delight upon his face that Axel had not seen the likes of in what felt like years.

_Of course_, Axel realized. _He remembers Lea, not Axel._

"Lea?"

Axel tensed, and looked to Sora. His face had contorted into a dark look. His brows clenched and his eyes had narrowed, his mouth now slightly ajar. Axel knew what he was thinking. He shook his head rapidly, denying the thoughts streaming through the younger boy's head. Ventus seemed utterly confused, and his happy demeanor faded in a matter of an instant. The silence was painful, and dragged on too long. Axel knew what he was thinking.

_After all of this… you lied._

"So it's true," Sora whispered, his tone harsh and hurt.

And then, just before Sora turned around, Axel saw his face change again.

"Sora!" Axel shouted, breaking into a run before he was grabbed tightly by Kairi.

"What did you do?" she asked quietly, her voice sharp like Sora's. So quietly. She was looking at him with this horrid look on her face. It was a look of hate, of contempt, of disbelief. It was unbearable.

And then she ran after Sora, and then he ran after Sora.

"Hey, wait! Lea!" Axel heard Ventus calling faintly through the heaviness of his own panting.

After over half a kilometer, Axel was tired, but, strangely, that wasn't stopping him from letting all of his energy waste away. He'd never been much of a runner, but he was sure that what he was feeling right now could've made him into one, because right now he felt almost separate from the tiredness, like he knew that it was there but it was no longer a factor in what he did. He felt like he could run forever, like the pain was actually helping him, distracting him from the many questions and horrid thoughts he knew were lying dormant within his mind. And he knew that he would run forever, if he had to.

But as he rounded the corner at the outskirts, he found Sora.

"Sora," Axel said, reaching him and grasping the boy's shoulder before he could flee again.

"Get away!" Axel's throat felt dry, and the panting wasn't helping.

"Look, just hear me out, alright?"

"Why should I?" Sora asked, his voice breaking again. "After… you were lying all along."

"I wasn't lying —"

"Oh, really?"

"No," Axel said, standing up straight after regaining his breath. "I told you, hear me out, alright?"

Sora quieted, and Axel sighed.

"Look. Axel's my Nobody name, alright? I haven't gone by Lea since… a long time ago. Got that?"

"How do I know I can believe that?"

_I could… tell him about how they're anagrams… but then I'd have to tell him about the Organization. Which's not gonna happen._

"I don't know," Axel replied after a while, sighing and placing a hand on his forehead.

"Why wouldn't you just tell us in the first place?" Axel froze as he heard Kairi's voice from behind him. He turned around to see her standing beside Ventus. Now Ventus's face was contorted into a bewildered look. He didn't understand.

"Yeah, why would you lie about your name, Lea?" Ventus asked, and his face killed Axel.

"I…" Axel began, standing still and not looking back. "I wasn't lying, Ven. I don't go by it anymore, so there's no point in telling anyone. Commit that to memory, alright?"

"Ven…" Kairi repeated. "Short for… Ventus?"

"What? Lea told you about me?" Ventus's eyes lit up, and he turned to Axel.

"_Axel_," Axel interjected, rubbing his temple.

"Wait… so he's the one you're looking for? The one that has your heart?" Sora asked, anger turning to fascination.

"You were looking for m —"

"No!" Axel shouted rashly. Ventus and the others quieted as Axel let in a few sharp breaths to calm himself. "No. Ven… I'm sorry, but I wasn't, and I'm not."

"Then who have you been after all this time?" Sora growled.

"Another… friend of mine. Who looks pretty similar."

"So you gave us the right description and everything, but you won't tell us his _name_? What's so special about his _name_?"

"Just don't want to say it, I guess," Axel replied, scratching his neck. There was an odd silence that filled the air after he said this. All of their faces had softened, and they were each looking to the floor expectantly.

"Now we're even," Sora said. Axel turned to him.

"Huh?"

"Now we're even," Sora repeated, looking to Axel's eyes. "You saved me twice. I saved you once, and this. We're even."

"Wait. So… you're not, like, mad?"

"I guess the names aren't that important," Sora reasoned calmly. "So I… forgive you. Are there any otherlies?"

_So many that I've lost count. _

"Uh…" Axel hesitated. "Just one."

"Talk," Sora said, though he seemed relieved that he wouldn't have to listen to many more lies.

"I just…" Axel paused. He cleared his throat. "Look, I went out one other time — you know, before you found me."

"You did?" Sora said quietly.

"Yeah."

"Where'd you go?" Axel sighed.

"I was pretty stressed out about my magic being locked, so I, uh, went to see Yen Sid."

"Yen Sid?" Kairi repeated. "Well, I guess that make sense. To get it unlocked."

"Bingo."

"Did he… do anything?" Sora wondered aloud. It was obvious Axel's magic hadn't been unlocked, but he was poking at the possibility that something else had occurred.

"I wish. The guy threw me out the second I got there."

"Is that all?" Kairi asked, leaning in a little.

"Weeell," Axel continued, still standing awkwardly. He almost considered stopping there, but he figured he already had enough lies to deal with without the additional ones he had created out of recklessness. "I kinda got attacked on my way out. And so, uh… the real reason I was at the Castle? I was looking for a way to fix myself up."

"You were…" Kairi seemed about to pursue one line of interrogation, then changed her mind. "Who attacked you, then? The… same person that we saw at the Castle?"

"I dunno about that," Axel said, scratching his neck innocently.

"How badly were you hurt?" Axel ran a hand down the length of his neck, leaning on his left leg.

"That badly, huh?"

"Could've been worse," Axel countered quickly.

"Was that why you wouldn't get ice cream those days in Agrabah?" Sora asked, crossing his arms. Axel bit his lip.

"Because you were hurt," Kairi agreed. Axel didn't respond, shying away. "Axel, you should've _said_ something."

Axel glanced back, raising an eyebrow slowly.

"Uh, in my defense, at the time I _was_ trying to, y'know, keep the whole doing-stuff-I'm-not-supposed-to thing to myself."

"Still," Kairi said, looking into his eyes, "you should have. Okay, we would have been a bit upset with you for ignoring us, but we would have helped you. Instead you just… suffered through it."

_Uh-oh. Looks like I pressed a button. Better tread lightly here, _Axel thought, alarmed.

"Kairi," Sora whispered, walking over to her as she teared up.

"Whoa, shut off the waterworks," Axel said, mouth falling ajar. "Look, I'm fine now, got it memorized? And I only had to deal with it for two days anyways."

Kairi seemed slightly calmer.

"I see," Kairi finally said. "Well, I guess I'm just glad you're okay."

"Thanks."

"You promise you'll tell us if something ever happens again?"

"Yeah."

Axel made sure to reply quickly so as not to arouse any suspicion, but the agreement had certainly stung. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to be entirely truthful with them, still.

_There are some things that are just best left unsaid and unknown. 'Tis the sad truth._

…_Why couldn't you understand that… Roxas?_ Axel pondered this thought for a moment.

"Good." A silence filled the air as Axel's eyes wandered to Ventus. He ignored the many questions that were formulating in his mind by the second, and cleared his throat quietly. "So, Ven… you want us to take you home?"

"Home?" Ven repeated the word sadly. Immediately he had looked down, but his gaze soon, albeit slowly, reverberated so that his eyes were following the setting sun. "I don't even know where home is anymore."

"'S… that so?" Axel replied uncomfortably.

"Are you lost?" Sora asked.

"I…" Ventus's eyes trailed from the sun to the mountaintops the fading light was emanating across. "I know where I am… but I'm still lost."

"Huh?" Sora said, scratching his head. There was a pause.

"C'mon, Ven. Whaddya say you hang out with me?"

"You mean it?" Ven's face lit up as he met Axel's high gaze. When Axel nodded, a grin spread out across Ventus's face as he exclaimed, "Thanks, Le — Axel, I mean!"

_That smile… _Axel thought, a dark cloud lingering in his thoughts. Every time Roxas had thanked him, the boy had smiled the same smile Axel was looking at now.

"Wait, so he's coming with us, Axel?" Sora said, meeting Axel's now confused eyes.

"Uh, looks that way," Axel responded, returning to reality.

"So," Ven started, "where are you guys going?"

"We stay in Traverse Town at night and we go to a lot of different places in the daytime," Sora explained.

"Traverse… Town? I've never heard of it."

"It's okay, I hadn't heard of it either before I left myhome world."

"This isn't my home world."

"Huh?" Sora said, looking puzzled. He looked to Axel again.

"Don't look at me," Axel said, holding his hands up.

"But how'd you meet him if he's from another world?"

"How should I know? At the time I kinda didn't know about the whole multi-world thing."

"Where are you from?" Kairi finally asked for all of them.

"The Land of Departure." Sora scratched his head.

"I've never heard of it."

"Oh," Ven said, looking disappointed.

Upon seeing the frown Axel wasn't sure how much more he was going to be able to take.

"Look, Ven. It's getting kinda late for today, but how 'bout we check it out tomorrow?"

Ven's frown had disappeared, as he slowly looked to Axel's face again. A less wide smile, but still a prominent one, spread across Ventus's face.

"I wish…" Ven began, glancing to the sky again, "that I'd gotten to know you better, Lea."

"Don't dwell on the past," Axel said quickly, mentally declaring himself to be the biggest hypocrite that ever lived. "And it's—"

"You're right," Ventus said after a while, "I won't."

"Hey," Sora said, eyes brightening. "Why don't we all get some ice cream? What do you say, Ventus? Want to get some ice cream with us?"

"Ice cream?" Ven repeated.

He smiled, approving the suggestion with a single nod, as that too familiar smile spread across his face.

* * *

><p><em>Today makes 13. 13 days I've been here.<em>

As he sat he couldn't escape the memories. They were beginning to make him feel sick; they had become so overwhelming. He forced himself to ignore them all, all the goddamn memories of everyone and what everyone had said. He couldn't think about them right now. Not right now.

He didn't say a word for the entirety of their stay atop the clock tower; he only offered a nod or a head shake to any comments thrown his way. He couldn't help noticing that Ventus kept looking at him as they sat, as if he expected Axel would or should say something. Yet, despite this persistent back and forth glancing, Ventus remained silent with regards to Axel. Axel himself had resolved that it was much too risky for him to question Ventus due to the possibility that either Sora or Kairi would find some connection to Axel's own predicament. And it was for this reason that he remained quiet until the pair of Sora and Kairi parted ways with Axel and Ventus in the hotel at Traverse Town later that evening.

"So, we'll see you guys in the morning, okay?" Sora said.

"Yeah," Ventus said, and Axel nodded.

Axel had elected to accompany Ventus for the night, if he were to prefer not to have to stay in his room alone until he went to sleep (Axel wasn't going to accompany him in the room to sleep because, well, Axel wasn't particularly fond of the idea of being a registered sex offender). But it was also in a sort of ploy intended to help him procrastinate in dealing with his thoughts; the sooner he was alone the sooner he knew he'd been damned to his own introspection.

Ventus had a room across the hall to stay in while Axel had the Red Room; Sora had the Green Room reserved and another a couple doors over for Kairi (they had decided to keep with their traditional rooming, Axel in the Red Room and Sora in the Green Room, so they didn't have to move any of their things). Axel wasn't sure where Aerith went to stay for the night, or where any of the others were. He liked Aerith and appreciated her kindness, but quite frankly he didn't care where they were, either.

"Okay, see you tomorrow!" Sora and Kairi almost said simultaneously. They laughed, heading to the end of the hall. Ventus was watching them intently until, with a click, the door next to them was closed. Then he slowly craned his head towards Axel. Axel opened his own door and motioned with his neck.

Ventus walked in, but stood silent in the middle of the floor for a few moments as Axel closed the door behind him.

"Hey, you okay there, Ven?"

"Yeah," Ven said quietly. "You know… you've changed."

Axel felt sick again.

"Oh, yeah?" Axel said, scratching his neck and sitting on the bed.

"You're different. You're more…" Ven scratched his head and remained quiet.

"Obnoxious? Childish? …Lame? Take your pick."

"No…" Ventus said, ignoring Axel's input. "Mature. You're more mature."

"Did you miss the last thing I just said, or —"

"_Lea _—"

"— Axel."

"Why do I have to call you that?" Axel paused. When Roxas had asked Axel why the keyblade chose him his "why" had sounded the same — sharp and quick, critical and pleading.

"I told you. I don't go by it anymore."

"Why not?"

"It's… complicated."

"Why won't anyone ever tell me anything? I have so many things to ask!" Ventus exclaimed abruptly, and cradled his head in his arms.

"Whoa, calm down—" Axel said, shocked at the sudden change in Ventus's behavior.

"Lea, why am I here? Why… why do you look so much older than I do? Where have I… been?

"Who… am I?" Axel looked at him, scratching his neck.

"Well, uh, I don't know why you're here, buuuut… I look older 'cause I am, Ven. It's been ten years."

"Ten… years? How is that… how is that possible?"

"I dunno, man." He knew his answers were lame, but he didn't know what else to say. He didn't understand any of it either.

"You're not helping!" Ventus exclaimed, placing his hands on his head.

The way he placed his hands on his head reminded Axel of Roxas, too: on one mission at Castle Oblivion Axel recalled Roxas clutching his head, insisting that they ignore his pain and find —

Axel put a hand to his own head upon feeling a pain pulse there and through his chest.

_Find… what? What is it… that we were talking about… in all these memories? _Axel narrowed his eyes._ And why … _

"Lea? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah," Axel replied, dropping his hand as he let in a deep breath. "Don't sweat it."

They sat silently for a while, as Ventus wordlessly observed Axel's living quarters, the Red Room. His eyes were flowing over the windowsill, the curtains, then the dresser and the canopy of the bed. As his neck craned to look throughout the room, Ventus's eyes eventually stopped on one area.

"What's that?" Ventus asked, pointing to the book on Axel's bedside table. Axel straightened as he felt himself turn a little red — he'd forgotten he'd left it there, out in the open.

"A book," Axel replied, pulling it towards him with one arm. Ventus opened his mouth. "_Yeah_, it's an _actual _fairytale book."

"…Why do you have it?" Axel faltered. He glanced from the book back to Ventus's face, and then formulated a small grin.

"Alright. I'll show you," he said. With a slow, almost dramatic movement, he flipped the pages of the book to the image of the boy and the girl in the cage, the boy holding the key high above his head. With this page visible, Axel tugged the key from around his neck so that he hung over the outside of his shirt.

At first Ventus seemed bewildered, but after a few glances to the book and back to the key, his mouth fell ajar.

"I know, weird, right?" Axel inquired.

"You think that's weird? Look at this," Ventus said, placing a hand in his pocket. He withdrew an object within his palm.

Now Axel's mouth was the one that fell ajar.

_He… he has one too? _Axel thought exasperatedly. He looked back to the picture in the book._ And not just any,_ _either. His is on the girl's side._

"Where'd you get that, Ven?" Axel said, swiftly taking it from his palm. The illustration wasn't very detailed, but if Axel used his imagination he could say that the boy in the drawing looked almost like Ventus and Roxas.

"I don't know. It was just there when I woke up," Ven said, inching closer to look at the two keys sitting in Axel's palm. "I thought I should keep it… that maybe I'd remember what it was for…" Axel had rotated the two so that their teeth interlocked, but a space still remained between the two.

"Same here," Axel said, testing various ways of conjoining the keys.

"What're you…"

"There's another one."

"Ano — what?"

"Another key," Axel said, pointing to his open palm again. He'd rotated the two half-moon keys so that they directly faced each other. "See, when you arrange 'em like this they don't fit."

Ventus nodded.

"But when I mix 'em up like _this_…" Axel said, now rotating the keys so that they diagonally faced each other. "Like this, they interlock."

"There's still empty space up here," Ventus said, pointing to the unfilled space above the top of the two keys. "I guess you're right."

There was a silence between the two of them. Axel's mind raced.

_There's obviously a relationship between him and me. A connection there. But I can't imagine from what — I know the guy for approximately five minutes, and that somehow made me qualify for some bigger thing with him? I don't even know that, so how am I supposed to figure out who this third person is? …Y'know, _I_ said there was a third person. It could not even be true. And plus, why does it matter, anyways? Is this discovery somehow going to change… everything? Somehow… make it all better?_

_I know it won't. Nothing I've done has made a difference._

"Axel, who do you think it is? Any ideas?" Ventus asked excitedly. Axel scratched his neck, making strict eye contact with the younger boy.

"Look, Ven, it's no one. I made that up. And, even if there _was_ someone, what would that change?" Axel paused. "Nothing, that's what."

"But how do you know that?"

_But how do you know that. _The words stung for some reason he couldn't place.

"Ven, it's better we don't get wrapped up in some fantasy. It's just setting ourselves up for a lotta disappointment… alright?"

He felt like he was fighting some inner demon, as if something was trying to escape him, to consume him without his consent. A strange feeling was coming over him, a feeling of hopelessness; he was feeling like he was gradually losing what he was hanging on to, what he'd been hanging on to from the very beginning: his last hope.

"Better than to not try and not know anything!" Ventus shouted. Axel sat still, ceasing eye contact, instead meeting his eyes with the floor.

"You really are different," Ventus said. "You wouldn't have given up from the start then. You would have tried."

_Kid, you don't know a thing about me, _Axel almost said.

The thoughts wouldn't leave.

"Why won't you just try?" Ventus said, frowning as his voice lowered in volume throughout the sentence. "Why not…?"

Axel felt his heart drop, the useless lump of flesh continuing to press repeatedly against his chest wall. He frowned, looking Ventus back into the eyes, but said nothing. He just stared into the eyes they all shared; the same eyes with the same sparkling blue irises that always formed the same guilt inside his chest.

"We'll check out your home world tomorrow, alright? But, like I said, we shouldn't go looking for something we're never gonna find. If we _do _happen to find something, then that's great. Okay?"

"So we're gonna try?"

"Sure," Axel consented lamely. Ventus sighed.

"Good night, Axel," he said, going through the door leading to the hall.

Axel sighed himself, lying back down on the bed. He began alternating between running his hands over his face and running them through his hair. He closed his eyes for a while, trying desperately to eradicate the feeling of guilt that had filled him once more.

_I don't know how much longer I'm going to be able to take this. I feel like… ugh. _He rubbed his temple therapeutically. As he did, he felt a sore spot, the place where Aerith had punched him, and winced. At least Ventus hadn't asked about that.

Now wondering how it actually appeared, Axel walked over, sitting by the mirror. It was really no wonder why they'd mentioned it; it was an ugly black and purple mess that had already swelled quite a lot.

_Sheesh, note to self: don't mess with Aerith, _he thought, feeling beneath his eye where a lump had formed.

He sighed, hoping that despite the evident swelling the subject would remain untouched. He got up to lie back down on the room's bed.

As he lay, he closed his eyes with the intention to go to sleep, but it didn't come as quickly as he hoped; in fact, when he finally felt himself beginning to drift away, he was awoken by the sound of a sudden knocking on his door. He sat still for a moment, wondering if he'd imagined it in his dreary state or if it had indeed been someone knocking on someone _else_'s door; however, after three knocks and about 15 seconds it became rather unmistakable that the knocking was against his door. Yawning, Axel stood, flipping on the light switch and then opening the door.

"W— oh, hey," he said, seeing Aerith's face. She'd been visiting him a lot lately, he'd noticed, as to what that meanthe wasn't quite sure. She was probably still watching him.

"May I speak with you?" Her tone was different than usual; it sounded more serious than the calm and caring one he'd already grown used to. Axel nodded slowly, though he watched her extra closely as she entered. "Who… who are you?"

"Huh?" Axel said, taken aback. Her face wasn't angry. He didn't know how to describe it.

"Who is Lea?" Axel winced at the usage of his former name.

"Um… me?" he replied dumbly.

"Why didn't you… say something before? I believe you, I just… I just realized, Axel…" She met his eyes at this point. "We really know nothing about you. We know that you're from Radiant Garden, you were a Nobody and that now you're not. That's all. It's difficult… to know the real you when we know so little."

"I feel like there's something in particular you're hinting at, here."

"Axel…" she continued, "What happened to your family? Your friends?"

"Beats me," Axel said, rubbing his temple again. "If I knew that, a lotta things would be a whole lot simpler, you take it from me."

She quieted, apparently thinking about what he'd said.

"Are you really telling me everything?" She asked, and with that, he was struck. Feeling a sort of anger boil up inside him, he furrowed his brow and retorted:

"Oh, yeah? Just like you tell_ me _everything, right?" He let those words waft through the air for a few moments. "So, you and the others making bets on what I say? You down a thousand munny if you don't find out?"

Suddenly she was petrified.

"You… you heard that?" she asked quietly. "Axel, I'm so sorry —"

As his gaze had wandered she'd pulled his shirt so that he looked at her. She was looking straight into his eyes. Her eyes were wide and her brow was furrowed. He supposed she looked sorry, but he didn't care. He was tired of them sticking their noses into his business. But he still was waiting for her to speak again.

"I'm sorry," she repeated, touching his face. He flinched back. "Cid — he just worries about us. I told you before. It really isn't anything personal. Please believe me — I trust you, Axel. I'll say it as many times as you like."

Axel sighed, rubbing his eye this time and trying not to sound angry. "Just leave me alone, okay?"

"W… alright. Alright." She stood up, holding her hands together with her head lowered. Placing a hand on the doorknob, she said one last time, "I trust you, Axel. See you… see you tomorrow."

After turning the light back off he'd returned to his bed, placing his pillow firmly atop his head and groaning. He'd been set off, and he felt awful. It wasn't physical pain, aside from his eye; it was in his head. For the first time since all of this, he wanted to run away. This was surprising, especially considering the many irritating hindrances he'd had to deal with (namely the magic locking and the injury), but this was genuinely the first time he felt this way through all of it: he just wanted to leave and be done with everything, and everyone — _screw it all, who needs anybody else, everything was better when I didn't feel anything_.

And this was the first time Axel thought that maybe he'd been better off as a Nobody.


	17. Sudden Disturbance

Despite the fact that Axel awoke to a banging, he felt somewhat better. He no longer felt a craving or an urge to flee, and any feelings of contempt towards Aerith and the others had mostly evaporated. This was the beauty of sleep, at least for him; it allowed his mind to calm, to settle and allow rational thinking to take over in place of emotional bias. He knew that Ventus hadn't been trying to aggravate him the prior night. He was also confident that Aerith liked his company, and he knew that she had rarely showed any signs of distrusting him; in fact, she'd defended him early on. Basically, it had been a rough night. But things would get better. Or at least, so he kept telling himself.

Earlier that night, Axel had tried thinking about why Ventus looked exactly like Roxas, but he couldn't come up with anything. He guessed it was just another one of those things with no easy explanation, so it was another one of those things he had no choice but to forget about. There were so many things he wanted to forget about. It confused him. He'd always thought while he'd been a Nobody that the good feelings and bad feelings would be equal, that it was a complementary system, not the disproportionate one he found himself involved with. He'd been alive — however it might be defined — for over two decades, yet he was still naïve as a child; he was still wrapped up in this silly, idealistic fantasy that life was fair. And he should've known better, too. Becoming a Nobody hadn't been fair in any sense of the word.

Sitting up quickly, Axel turned swiftly to the door as he determined it to be the source of the noise.

He jumped up, opening the door while rubbing his right eye sleepily. He noticed he was having trouble seeing out of his left eye, but he ignored it and opened the door, as it had sounded urgent.

Kairi was the one behind it. Axel dropped his hand as he noticed her expression; her brow was furrowed in concern and her hands were scrunched into nervous fists.

"Axel, Sora's sick," she said, getting straight to the point.

"Huh?" Axel said dumbly, leaning slightly backwards as his expression livened. He almost completely missed the words that escaped her mouth; he was distracted by the fact that she'd tensed a little upon seeing him. His eye must be look pretty bad, he gathered (he'd been aware that it had swelled). He immediately felt remorse; Aerith had told him that he should ice it the day prior, and he'd had plenty of time to do so.

"Come on," she said, grabbing his wrist, and for once he neglected to protest. He shook his head, attempting to relieve himself of the selfish thoughts he'd just let enter his mind. He followed as she proceeded to drag him into the Green Room.

Sora was in the bed there, and Aerith was sitting in a chair beside it. The younger boy was asleep, but his face was contorted into a look of discomfort; his brow was narrowed and some sweat was visible on his temple. His teeth were visible as well, and his jaw was shifting awkwardly, like he was trying not to bite something. The blankets covered up to about his neck, and Axel could only see his right hand from over the covers. His breathing was labored, and Axel felt the guilt come again, but he'd gotten better at ignoring it.

Aerith's own expression seemed just as concerned as Kairi's. Her right hand, he noticed, was anxiously wrapped around her left. When she met eyes with him he could tell that they were both feeling the awkwardness of the prior night, and she made no apparent reaction to his eye. She seemed ready for him to speak, as if she expected him to tell her off, but after he expressed no such intentions she spoke instead.

"Axel," she began, stopping herself. Axel, still feeling awkward, was wondering if she expected him to butt in. He'd never been very apt at comprehending the signals women gave him.

"Um, is there a reason you're seeking _me _out here, cause I'm not much of a doctor." From her body language she seemed startled by his response. What was it? His tone? The nature of it?

"Yes," Aerith said quietly, nodding. Her voice increased in volume as she continued, "Axel, Sora was complaining of chest pain… before he collapsed. When he stood up… the same thing happened to him that happened to you."

"Seriously?" Axel inquired, his eyes widening some, all tiredness now evaporating.

"Could it be catching?" Kairi suggested.

"No way," Axel answered immediately. "Sheesh, imagine that —"

Axel deepened his voice in imitation of a newscaster: "'People have spontaneously started losing their hearts to an unknown source. Get a vaccine today, or you might be next.'"

"You don't have to be rude," she snapped back at him.

"'M sorry," he apologized quickly — that had been stupid. It was clearly a bad time to be joking; it made him seem uncaring. He didn't even know why he'd gone that route. Sighing to himself, he decided he'd have to watch his own speech closely.

"Axel, we were wondering if you… might know what to do? You seem like you've been doing better lately. You haven't… fainted in a while, have you?" Aerith asked him, getting to the point.

"Uh…" Axel scratched his head. "Nope, the last time was over a week ago."

"Have you been doing anything differently since then?" Axel thought about it, hoping to provide any answer he could come up with. He ended up sighing.

"I can't think of anything."

"Oh…" Aerith and Kairi both seemed to become solemn.

"Well, why don't you go get that old wizard and ask him?" He'd said "you", he realized afterwards. He should've said "we", which would have implied that he was eager to or intended to help. He couldn't help feeling that he wasn't very good at this.

"We already looked for him. We don't know where he is."

"Wh — oh, really? He didn't seem like the kind a guy that wouldn't leave a note."

"Would you stop being such a_ jerk_ and be serious for a second?" Kairi burst at him, and he jumped. He gave her a confounded look.

Axel honestly didn't see what mistake he'd made with that comment, only the one before it. He supposed, though, that this was the result of being accompanied by two females: two double doses of complicated meant he was dealing with a quadruple dose. And a quadruple dose of _anything_ was way too much. He hoped this conversation wouldn't continue for much longer.

"Huh?" Axel said dumbly, making eye contact.

"Kairi, it's alright," Aerith interjectedcalmly. "Anyways, Axel, Merlin_ isn't_ the type to not leave a note. We think… something may have happened to him."

"That's… not good," Axel commented quietly, fearing potential backlash. He jumped when the group heard Sora groan in his sleep.

"I'll be right back," Aerith said after her gaze shifted from Sora back to them. Their eyes met once more as she departed through the door that Axel had entered through. Her head was inclined downward a little, and Axel suspected she didn't want to look at him. Kairi had her head hung with a hand over her forehead, and Axel could hear her breathing in and out slowly.

"Hey…" Axel said. Mentally he was afraid of getting scolded, but he felt almost like it was his responsibility to speak with her. "You okay there?"

She looked up slowly, meeting his eyes from across the room. "I'm sorry, Axel. I don't mean it. I'm just worried."

"No, I get it, I get it." She nodded slightly and then looked away. Axel stood still for a moment, and thought. And he realized — this was it.

It was just him and her. If he told her now, if he asked her _right now_, he could really find out how she felt, if she really hated him but didn't even know it. He could create a hypothetical scenario, ask her what she would think about him if she knew he'd kidnapped someone, possibly Ventus. Whatever she would say would surely be how she felt about what he'd done to her.

She was so tense he knew she would be honest; she couldn't possibly feed him some crap about how he would never do something like that while she was trying so hard to comfort herself. He didn't deserve that, besides. He deserved the truth, whatever that meant. It probably meant she'd never want to see him again, but he was strangely okay with that; he just wanted the wonder to be gone, relinquished from his own mind.

No, that _was_ what it meant. She couldn't possibly forgive him. He couldn't even forgive himself, and he was the one that would have benefited from it; it had been his plan. If the criminal couldn't forgive himself, how could the victim? It didn't make sense at all. He didn't know what she was going to say when he told her, but he knew what she was going to express: hate and fear. The most painful sensations the human body had to offer. That was what she was going to feel and what she would pass on to him as he told her. But it was the opportune time, and it had to be done.

"Say, uh, Kairi…" His voice broke a little. He was chickening out, but he forced himself forward. "I've gotta…"

"Could you go? Look for him?" she asked, ignoring him completely. He heard a slight whimper on her lips, and he twitched.

"B…" he began. This was the first instance in the last several minutes where he actually saw her face. They stared at one another for a few moments.

Her hair was a little more ruffled than usual, and her mouth hung suspended a little, with her brow wrinkled slightly as her eyes fled from him to the floor and back again.

It was okay that she'd ignored him. He would just try again, repeat himself. He would look for Merlin _after _he asked. It would only take a few minutes, probably less, to extract the information he wanted, that he craved. He just had to try again. He opened his mouth.

"Alright," he said. "I'll be back, later, got it memorized? And um… I'm sorry," he said. She'd looked to him and nodded, as if she'd understood, when she didn't.

Axel let out a light sigh as he closed the door behind him after departing.

He'd apologized, as if that were going to change the fact that he'd chickened out. He'd said it like he was pretending that saying he was sorry would transcend her memories, like by saying it he would absolved and he could start again. Axel couldn't help but think himself to be, quite frankly, a real shithead.

Rubbing his forehead, he began walking back to his room. Taking a few deep breaths, Axel forced himself to let it go. He would have to try again some other time. Not today.

He forced his thoughts back to Sora with some conscious effort.

_They're… both pretty spooked. But there's no way he got it from me — something like this isn't contagious. But then what happened to him? And why'd it happen so fast? He was fine yesterday —_

"Axel?" Axel stopped walking, turning around to find a bewildered-looking Ventus.

"Oh, hey, Ven."

"Is something wro — whoa," Ven asked, looking around and below Axel. Axel wasn't sure what had triggered the question. "Your eye looks really bad, L — Axel. What happened, anyway?"

"I… I know," he said, gently touching the puffy mass. "It doesn't matter… Anyway, uh, well, Sora's got a bug or something. We're not sure what it is."

"Wh… really?"

"Mhm," Axel replied lamely.

A silence followed as the two of them stared off down the hallway.

"So… are we still…" Axel blinked a few times. It took him several moments to catch on to what Ventus was referring to.

"Riiight, your home world. Well, uh, I think they kinda wanted me to go look for this wizard guy that we know an' see if he can help Sora out. We don't know where he is, though."

"Oh…"

"Look, I'm sorry Ven…" Axel apologized guiltily. "Next time, alright? We'll go as soon as we figure things out here."

"It's okay," Ven replied unconvincingly. "So, where would he be?"

"Uh…" Axel thought about it.

"We already checked his house at the Third District and in Radiant Garden." Axel jumped as he heard Kairi's voice. He turned around to see her peeking around a corner.

"Oh, thanks," Axel said. "Buuuut… where else could the coot be, then?"

"Do you think someone kidnapped him?" Ventus asked, placing an inquiring finger to his chin.

"Oh!" Kairi yelped, looking to Axel. "You don't think it's the same boy that…"

She met his eyes, hoping for a response.

"Who, black-hooded guy? Don't see why it would be," Axel replied. "It's possible, but we don't know where he's at anyway, so that doesn't help much." Besides, Axel didn't see much purpose in Roxas kidnapping Merlin. Maybe when Axel's magic had been locked, but not now.

The two children glanced gravely to the ground, and Axel realized that he had done a rather pitiful job of instilling hope in the two of them. Thinking quickly, he attempted to muster up a possibility that would have true potential, as well as one that would cheer them up.

"Hey, I know," Axel said, eyes brightening to attract their attention. "Why don't we return to the scene of the crime? Maybe the guy left something behind that'll help us get 'im. We'd still have to check both houses, though."

They both nodded but didn't seem cheered by the suggestion. Axel had to hold in a sigh.

He followed Kairi silently. Ventus was keeping close to his side, and he seemed less than enthused.

_I feel like I need to cheer everybody up. But I don't want to seem all heartless…_

He almost laughed at the thought, but he stopped himself, knowing that laughing out of nowhere would likely seemed very, very demonic and out of turn. So, as they walked through the Second District and into the Third District, Axel kept completely quiet. He was beginning to think that he was being totally inconsiderate.

_Man, I should be thinking about Sora… I really am a jerk, _Axel thought, still trying to control himself. _But something just tells me the kid's gonna be fine. He's always been fine… hasn't he?_

He actually hadn't ever been in this area, he realized. He'd only gone in the other direction, to the First District, because that was where the portal to the ship was. Really the only business he had in Traverse Town was sleeping and then transferring to the portal. He had no reason to go anywhere else; he had nothing to do; he knew no one but his group at the hotel. This was also one of the reasons, as he had so pleasantly reiterated in last night's thoughts, that he'd never tried to retreat — he had nowhere to go. There was this funny thing about running away in that it required a place to run _to._

Axel had developed a keen knack for depressing thoughts as of late, so he tried instead concentrating on the multitude of bright lights present in the Third District. It was significantly smaller than the other districts; it seemed to him that he could see every part of it from the walkway they were currently at. Not that there was anything interesting to see. To his left there was a house that overlooked a small plaza with no really notable characteristics; to his right was an odd, exposed pipe that was covered with very powerful lights.

Kairi, still silent, led them down the stairs and into the plaza. She led them forward, past all of the street lights, and in the direction of an opening. As they reached the door a dirt path became evident. Soon they walked across this path, which, by the lack of footprints, Axel judged to be used rather infrequently, and the group spotted the house. It was, Axel realized glumly, in the middle of a small lake.

He held in a groan. Fortunately, there were five stone steps leading to the house, though jumping would likely be necessary.

_Can't he have an easier way to get into his house? Falling in ought to stink_, Axel thought. _Well, on second thought, I guess the guy _is _a wizard. He probably just does presto-change-o and then he's on the other side just like that._

Kairi was already on the third stone; Ventus was on the second.

Axel gulped, nervously stepping onto the first stone. He tried to convince himself that it was all in his head, and he quickly stepped to the second stone. Axel was relieved. He didn't even have to jump.

He swiftly followed in pursuit of the other two, and landed smoothly on the other side. Relief again filled him.

Wordlessly still, the three of them entered the house. Axel's first thought? _Man, there are a lot of books in here_.

Not only that, but there was seemingly no form of organization to the madness; there were just books splayed every which way with no discrimination at all. Though, in Merlin's defense, Axel considered many of the ways libraries and other such places organized books as a tad inane. Ways such as the hexadecimal system left him a bit puzzled. Whoever decided that 11 meant 17 must have had a few too many margaritas, as far as he was concerned.

There was also a table in the center of the room with a single teapot atop it. For some reason it was raised above the level of the rest of the room. Other furnishings included a bed and a telescope (for looking at _what_, Axel wondered; it's not like he could see the sky from here, it was a cavern_, _and he didn't seem to have any appealingneighbors… not that that's what Axel would've used it for). The house also contained a shelf with drawers of some type, a desk, and a table with a closed book atop it. He looked at it closer. It read, _The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh_.

He'd heard of the story, but an eyebrow went up as he spotted it.

_I thought that was a kid's book? What's he doing with it? _Axel soon realized the irony of his thoughts. _Okay, fine Gramps, I won't judge… But, on a serious note… what the hell is a "pooh", anyways?_

"I don't see anything," Axel stated conclusively as he closed the picture book. There were no signs of a struggle, and it appeared as if no books had been knocked over or misplaced (to the extent that he could tell). There was no blood (thankfully), no tears in cloths, no nothing. It hadn't taken long to survey the entire cottage. It was only a few meters in diameter.

"Well… what should we do?" Ventus asked. He'd looked to the floor as if he were dissatisfied with the results of the search, which Axel found understandable.

"Uh…" Axel thought about it quickly. "Well, I guess we should probably check out Radiant Garden too, just to… uh, be sure that the old coot was really here in the first place."

"Okay," Ventus replied, nodding lamely. Kairi didn't say anything.

"Hey…" Axel began, speaking mostly to Kairi. "Cheer up, would ya? Sora's gonna be fine. You don't gotta be worried about him."

For a moment she seemed about to speak, but she didn't.

"I know you're wondering how I know, and I guess I don't… I've just got a feeling that everything's going to work itself out soon. So don't sweat it."

"I thought you couldn't tell…" she whispered.

"Huh?" Axel said, blinking.

"I thought boys could never tell what girls are thinking," she said quietly, after a long silence. A small smile had formed on her face as she'd looked back up at Axel.

"In that case, it must've been a lucky guess," Axel responded, grinning slightly.

"Yeah," Ventus agreed, a smile forming as he laughed. "I wouldn't count on it ever happening again."

"Gee, thanks for the kind words, Ven," Axel said, but a smile was on his lips. Normally Axel would have tacked on some additional comment, like "You're just jealous because I'm popular with the ladies", but he was still trying to keep watch over his words, and he thought that might be pushing it.

"Come on, you guys, let's go," Kairi said, waving for them to follow her out of the cottage.

To Axel's satisfaction, she seemed to have cheered at least slightly — either that or she had begun putting on an act that would fool him into thinking that — as she had her head up as she walked away through Traverse Town's districts once more. Soon they arrived at the Accessory Shop, the very shop that Axel had entered nearly every day in order to fly to various worlds via the gummi ship.

He had personally been wondering if he would be the one to pilot the ship today, a task he'd never attempted before, but Kairi had immediately taken charge and occupied the pilot's seat. He supposed it didn't really matter besides, as they were only using the warp drive feature, which meant that there wouldn't be much piloting going on anyway. It didn't take long for Kairi to decode the controls and then press the button that sent them hurtling towards Radiant Garden.

As they had the first time they had arrived at Radiant Garden, they appeared conveniently within Merlin's house. This space, of course, was much larger than the cottage in Traverse Town, and the books were notably more organized here (though it was still nothing to sneeze at). This house also had some objects not present in its counterpart, such as a chalkboard (with no words on it) and a fireplace. Aside from this, however, little was different between the two homes; essentially this home proved to be a more embellished version of the other in Traverse Town. It even had _The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh _sitting on a table as well.

_Okay, _come on, _man! _Axel couldn't help thinking. _The guy really needs TWO of the damn thing? _

He thought about it, and he could only come up with two reasons why this would be: the guy either had a real personal connection with Winnie the Pooh, or he had a lot of friends who liked the bear. Either way, it was creepy as hell. But Axel still told himself not to judge.

Honestly, though, Axel didn't get it, and he never had — the Pooh thing. He didn't have anything _against _Pooh, and Axel guessed he was pretty cute, at least as far as anthropomorphic bears that look like yellow potatoes went. But he thought, quite frankly, that if the guy had to_ tell_ himself to "think, think, think" all the time, he must be a little lacking in that department. But Axel didn't know, really; maybe that was part of his charm.

Axel was about to turn around to announce his findings (nothing), when he was tapped on the shoulder.

"Axel." Axel jumped at the sudden speech. It had been Kairi.

"Find something?" he asked, turning around immediately.

"Look," she said, pointing to the floor behind a chair where the table sat. There, beneath the chair and covered by a dark shadow, was a small, cardboard popsicle stick with the word "WINNER" written at its end.

Axel stood immediately still. Before letting either of the other two get a closer look he had snatched up the stick and was staring wide-eyed at it. He pressed on the wood a few times as if to convince himself that it was real. He couldn't take his eyes off of the word — "WINNER".

"Hey, it looks like one of those popsicle sticks for the ice cream we had yesterday," Ventus noticed. "Why does it say WINNER? What do you win?"

Neither Axel nor Kairi answered; Axel was too busy staring intently at the stick and Kairi didn't seem to have the will to respond.

"B…beats me," Axel answered.

Technically it _was _true; he'd never turned in the WINNER stick that Roxas had given him, or bothered to ask.

"Well, what does it mean that it's here?"

Axel knew what it meant. But he still remained silent.

"It means that whoever took Merlin eats ice cream in Twilight Town," Kairi responded. Axel saw her glance to him suspiciously.

"Hey, what? Don't look at me. You just woke me up, remember?"

"I know. I was just joking," Kairi responded.

Axel thought the joke didn't seem to be in very good taste, but he let his thoughts return to the stick.

It was an invitation, Axel knew. It was a perfect invitation, actually, as Axel would the only one who would really know what the stick meant. The stick had been a gift from Roxas, and the fact that it was here meant that he had taken it and placed it there explicitly for him to find it. True, it might not be the same stick; in fact, it could very well be Merlin's own stick, but Axel simply found this unlikely. It would just be too big of a coincidence — they go to the wizard's house and find that he also eats sea-salt ice cream, and, not only that, but he has a winning stick? It just didn't fit. And for that reason, Axel knew that, sometime soon, he would need to go to The World That Never Was (though actually, this part was pretty much a guess, but it seemed the most likely, seeing as the world had a dungeon and it was where the stick probably had been previously). And, once he found him, he could at last find out the truth about everything — their friendship or lack thereof.

"Axel," Ventus addressed him, and Axel finally looked up. "What do we… do with it?"

"I'll hold onto it, I guess," he said. "Doesn't seem too important, but no harm in taking it. Unless the old man's really in it for the prize. But then again, he'd have to be around to claim the prize, so…"

Axel stopped upon realizing that he was beginning to ramble. "Um, anyway, I don't see anything else interesting around here."

Both of his companions nodded in agreement, and they headed back.

When they arrived, Axel was careful to knock on the door before entering, considering how things played out the last time he decided not to. However, to Axel's confusion, there was no response on the other side of the door.

"Uh… why isn't she answering?" Axel wondered aloud. He gulped at the thought of storming in unannounced. He really didn't want to get punched.

"She might've switched rooms so she didn't bother him…" Kairi responded, and Axel was relieved. "She'd probably be in the Red Room."

"Right," Axel agreed, walking the several meters over to the Red Room. Quickly, almost nervously, he knocked. He was pleased upon hearing the click that meant the door was opening.

"Oh, you're back," she said, opening the door wide so that they could enter. From their faces as they came in she seemed to be able to tell that they hadn't found anything significant. "I take it you… didn't find anything?"

When neither of the children spoke, Axel felt obligated to respond. "No, we didn't. We went back to his houses but we couldn't find any trace of the guy, so we don't have any idea where to look. If you've got any ideas…"

"I see… I don't."

"Oh, well, um…"

"You three don't have to keep looking. He seems to be doing a little better; he even spoke to me earlier. And you know, maybe Merlin just went out. He could be back soon. Anyway, I don't think we really need any help at this point. Sora will probably be fine tomorrow."

Axel was surprised by the seemingly sudden change of heart; though, on second thought, he figured she'd had plenty of time to think about the decision with them gone. Perhaps she had come to the conclusion that they had overreacted and made assumptions. Axel himself hadn't looked that closely at Sora.

"You're sure?" Axel asked cautiously.

"I don't think it's necessary." With this response, Axel's eyes trailed to Kairi as he wondered what she was thinking. As she noticed Axel's gaze, she spoke, as if to unnerve him:

"You're probably right."

"'Kay, if you're both okay…" Axel responded, noticing that Aerith was staring at him. "What?"

"You really should put some ice on that, Axel. You can't even see out of that eye, can you?" Every time he managed to forget about it, they mentioned it again. The three of them soon expressed, in unanimous agreement, that it looked terrible.

"Alright," he responded after a while, walking over to the cabinet that stored the small sort of refrigerator the hotel provided for him. He bent onto his knees and looked into it. In it there were a few cans of drinks, a bag of frozen peas and another bag of frozen broccoli (it was no wonder why this was the frozen food that remained). Most of the time they had gone out and eaten at the Traverse Town plaza, aside from the few nights and mornings where Axel opted out in order to sleep, but Axel had still purchased a thing or two were he to want a snack. That aside, the fact that he had bought peas and broccoli showed that he had been in a good mood at the time that he had bought them, because it had clearly been wishful thinking.

_Uh… I guess the peas'll be fine, _Axel thought. _It's not like they're getting any other_ _use._

Withdrawing the small bag, he stood back up, catching his face in the mirror as he did. He rolled his eyes — they were unmistakably right. It was even more of a swollen mess than it had been the day prior. Purple had now completely overtaken the black of the previous day and the mass had doubled in size. Not wanting to have to stare at it any longer, he placed the cold package to his face. After doing so he turned to the rest of the group, as if to say, "There, happy now?"

"Sit," Aerith told him, patting the bed next to her. He obeyed, and an awkward silence ensued. "So, you're Ventus?"

Ventus seemed shocked at the usage of his name until he noticed her. "Oh, yeah."

She reached out her hand and he took it. They exchanged "good to meet you"s and then the silence came again.

Ventus and Kairi were just standing completely still. Axel figured they didn't have much to do, and it would probably be difficult, he knew, for Kairi to entertain herself knowing that Sora wasn't well. Ventus, on the other hand, only really wanted to do one thing, and that was return to his home world. This sparked a thought in Axel's mind.

"Oh, hey… Ven," Axel addressed, shocking the others into consciousness, "I guess we could go check out your home world, if you want. Since we've got nothing else to do."

"Really?" Ventus's face had clearly brightened at the suggestion. "Can we… can we go now?"

"Yeah —"

"Axel, give it a little while longer." He'd been about to stand up. "The ice needs to stay there for at least fifteen minutes."

"Oh." Ventus nodded in understanding.

"You'll be back soon?" Aerith asked after a little while.

"You bet," Axel responded, standing up and replacing the package into the freezer. "C'mon Ven."

Ventus led the way to the portal despite only having been there twice; he was apparently driven by the excitement. He was smiling again, this time as wide as he had been the prior day at the clock tower and when Axel had offered to assist him. Axel had a smile on his lips, glad to see that the younger boy was happy again.

When they transferred to the portal, Ventus eagerly took the pilot's seat. They discovered soon that The Land of Departure wasn't in the warp drive queue (which shouldn't have come as a surprise, seeing as Sora had never heard of the world), and Ventus elected to fly them the way. He still remembered the path back to his home world, of course.

The flight itself was rather uneventful; Ventus seemed to be very keen on dodging ships that wanted to create violence. Axel had been curious about what the flight would be like; however, his curiosity seemed to be unwarranted. The scenery wasn't exciting at all: it consisted of stars, occasional blips of worlds, and frequently other ships.

_Never would have guessed that rocketing through the universe at who-knows-what-speed would be so… dull_.

"It's coming up!" Ventus warned after apparently spotting some kind of marker that Axel had missed in his conscious sleep. In fact, as he became more conscious, he was finding Ventus's own expressions a great deal more entertaining than their environment. The boy's face was brightening evermore with every few seconds, until finally it changed completely — into a look of horror.

"Huh?" Axel said. Noticing the abrupt transformation, he turned to the dashboard — and gasped.

The world, presumably The Land of Departure, was completely enveloped in a dark fog. Axel could barely make out the outline of a castle beneath the frightening haze. The castle's towers seemed to be the only glimpse of the world that was available to them. There was something else strange about it, Axel noticed. He couldn't quite tell what it was, but something about the darkness just seemed oddly familiar.

Ventus had halted the ship and it was floating just in view of the dark world.

"What…" Ventus began. His voice cracked.

"Ven…" Axel started cautiously. "'M sorry, man."

He'd hung his head and his bangs hid his face from view. His breathing was becoming labored, coming ever closer to becoming sobs. This continued for over a minute. Axel was about to intervene when Ventus spoke again.

"…I've gotta see," he said. Before Axel could ask what, the boy had slammed on the accelerator. And as he did so, as they rushed closer to the darkened world, Axel felt the terror.

"Ven, we can't go in there," Axel spewed, hiding the fear that was forming in him. He tried to say it calmly. Ventus wasn't slowing down, despite Axel's words. "Ven! Listen to me. We've gotta turn around!"

The black was overtaking them. It was already almost all of what he could see, and in moments it would consume it all.

The darkness.


	18. Unbearable Resemblance

Tests. Sorry.

* * *

><p>There was a powerful blast as they impacted the dark fog, as if it were some kind of atmosphere that the darkness had created for the world. The ship had jerked harshly but still flew forward into the depths of the mist. As soon as they had broken through the barrier Axel had sat, frozen, unable to speak. Ventus still retained the determined yet disturbed look that he'd had prior. Axel gripped his seat tightly, trying to stop himself from shaking, though it wasn't cold.<p>

As they floated beneath the clouds, a portal was clear, and Ventus steered the ship into it. Soon a blast of light infiltrated the darkness, and then, before either of them realized it, they were standing in clear view of the enshrouded castle. Straightaway, Axel grasped Ventus's wrist as the boy began to walk forward.

"Ven, we can't be here. We gotta leave." He tried to sound composed. "It's not safe here."

"Let go of me!" he shouted, glaring at Axel as he struggled. The familiar guilt was coming into him, and it felt even worse than it ever had before. He was looking into Roxas's face and he was disappointing him. It was just like when Roxas had left the Organization; he'd had this same angry and upset face back then too.

"I'm telling you, it's not safe here. You just gotta trust me."

"Let _go_!" Ventus screamed once more, his eyes wide in fury. With his free hand he leaned back and then shot forward, landing a prevailing blow right in Axel's swollen eye.

"Agh!" Axel gasped as he was forced to release Ventus. He watched with his one available eye as Ventus ran in the direction of the castle.

The pain had exploded into Axel's face, causing him not only discomfort but frustration. He was certain that, had Ventus punched him anywhere else (save for _down there_) he'd have been able to keep his grip on the boy's wrist. He'd already spent a few moments trying to gather himself and wait for the pain to subside, and it was clear that the throbbing wasn't going to be disappearing any time soon. He knew it was going to be his fault if Ventus was lost in the depths of the world, if he was lost in this evil darkness that Axel knew to be a danger; so, with this in mind, Axel stood and began to pursue him.

"Ven!" Axel kept shouting as he ran. He could see him, though he was a small speck. He was almost to the castle — where Axel wouldn't be able to get him back. Taking a deep breath, Axel summoned a chakram and thrust it.

As Axel had intended, the weapon flew in an arc: it came from his left hand, curved right, and intercepted Ventus's path, causing him to trip and fall. Axel tackled him as soon as he was within catching distance.

"Get…! Off!" Ventus shouted, but Axel had pinned him to the ground.

"Ven, you gotta relax. We can't be here. This place… it's bad news. I…"

Ventus didn't respond. He'd stopped struggling and had placed his face into the grass. He was beginning to sob.

Axel didn't know what to say anymore. As soon as he'd heard the sound of crying he was at a loss for words. He'd never seen Roxas cry before, much less Ventus, and he had no idea how to stop it. He felt he shouldn't interrupt, despite the feeling he had of impending peril. So he got off of Ventus, sitting beside him, and he waited. Ventus neglected to move, even with his mobility returned.

Axel's fear was beginning to calm a little; however, every time he looked at the black fog he would shake some. He couldn't say where he had seen it or what he'd felt when he was there, but he knew one thing: this darkness, this fog, had been present when he'd become a Nobody. It had witnessed his corruption and had perhaps overseen it. There was no way that Axel was going to let Ventus get any closer. He would attack him with his own hands before he would let that fog do it.

In his silence, Axel was aware that the two of them had already been gone for a while, especially because of the lengthy gummi ship flight, but this while was beginning to stretch to become a much longer while, because, after what Axel estimated to be about twenty minutes, Ventus still hadn't moved. Axel's face really hurt, and he knew that he should be getting back to Traverse Town, but he couldn't bring himself to disturb Ventus's grieving. While Axel was busy distracting himself, he heard Ventus say something muffled into the grass.

"Can't hear ya, Ven." Ventus lifted his head, and finally Axel could see the tears.

The drops were giant, and he almost couldn't believe they'd come out of the young boy's eyes — it seemed like there were a thousand different paths down his face, each belonging to an individual tear. His face was stained red and his lip was downturned, his bangs stuck to his moist face. But the worst part was how his eyes were staring upwards. They were a mix of anger and sorrow, of anguish in its purest form.

"They're all dead."

Axel was frozen stiff for a few moments. He was so startled by the image before him.

"You… you don't know that, really," Axel managed hoarsely. "They could have… uh… went to another world when this one… went south."

"Why am I here?" he spat out. "Why am I here… if everyone else is gone?"

"Who… who knows why we're _all _here, Ven. It's the mystery of…life." He was quite obviously having difficulty finding his words.

"Lea…" Axel didn't correct him.

"Yeah?"

"Who am I?"

"_Axel... Who am I, really?"_

"_You really think the truth is going to make you feel better? It won't."_

"_I have a right to know who I am! …Are you gonna tell me or not? Axel… who am I?"_

It echoed in his mind over and over: _Who am I?_

"I… I don't know."

"Fine."

He stood up, to Axel's surprise, though he made no eye contact. Turning around, he began to walk back in the direction of the ship without a word. Still stunned, Axel followed at a slow pace, keeping a generous distance from the other boy. Ventus was walking at a rather unproductive speed, as it took the two of them an astonishingly long time to reach the ship. But Axel ignored this, simply glad that Ventus had returned to the ship at all. At this point Ventus took the wheel, leaving Axel only a few seconds to situate himself within the adjacent seat. Axel placed his hand on Ventus's shoulder.

"Ven, you just gotta move on from the past…"

Hypocrite.

"Don't touch me."

Axel avoided sighing and quickly punched in the warp drive to Traverse Town (before Ventus got any ideas).

They arrived in a matter of moments and Ventus departed as quickly as he had embarked, though he began walking faster than he had on the way to the ship. As he followed, Axel noticed his fists were clenched tightly and his steps were heavy and frequent. When they reached the hotel, Ventus entered the room he'd stayed in the night prior without another word.

"Hey, Ven, wait —"

"Leave me alone!" Up until this point none of his statements had accompanied a notable increase in speaking volume, but here the adjustment was clearly present. The door closing in his face, Axel stood for a few moments outside of the room Ventus had stayed in the prior night.

He felt like he should do something, like try to comfort the boy and tell him everything would be fine — but he didn't know if that was truthful or not, and he couldn't bear to lie anymore.

Rubbing a hand across his temple, Axel sighed deeply, slowly walking the short distance to the Red Room. He knocked, looking up late as Aerith opened the door. Her face didn't appear pleased. Axel noticed that Kairi was not present in the room; he immediately figured she must have transferred over to the Green Room with Sora.

"There you are! You said you would be back soon, Axel — why is your eye bleeding?"

Axel placed a hand to his eye; he hadn't realized there was blood. She ordered him to sit down, where she grabbed a nearby cloth and dabbed at it. She stopped after a few moments, probably once all the blood was gone. "What happened? It looks even worse…"

She looked around suddenly. "Where's Ventus?"

He didn't respond again. He was just staring blankly at the wall.

"Goodness, you don't have a concussion, do you?" She'd fetched some ice and had handed it to him. After she spoke, he quickly placed the package to his eye.

"Oh, nah, I'm fine," he replied, realizing that his lack of response was concerning her. "Relax."

"I'll ask again: where's Ventus?"

"…In his room."

"Is he alright?"

"Don't think so."

"You don't think so? What's wrong? Is he hurt?"

"Not… not physically."

"Axel, please stop talking in three word sentences. Tell me what's wrong."

Axel felt an urge to be a smartass, and he seriously considered responding with a two or four word sentence, or, better yet, another three word one.

"His world's in bad shape. He can't go back there. He's a smidge upset about it," Axel responded, realizing afterwards how irritable he sounded.

"Oh…" she responded quietly, her face becoming softer. "Should I talk to him?"

"Not unless you want your eye looking like mine."

"He did that to you?" she asked in disbelief.

"I really need to stop giving people reasons to punch me, huh?" he joked, and she seemed startled. She seemed startled by what he said a lot. He couldn't figure why. "But it's fine. He didn't mean it or anything."

"So you're just going to leave him be?"

"Don't know what else to do. I'd like to keep my other eye."

Even though he'd made a joke, he was still surprised when she smiled. The smile itself was strangely odd to him; it was almost like it was different somehow than all of the other smiles she'd given him. This one seemed almost like the kind of smile that someone would subject to another person they had known for years; it was the sort of smile that would be given to someone the person was exceptionally fond of.

"Hey… Axel," she said, her expression changing. "About last night…"

"What about it?" Axel asked, not really looking at her.

"I'm just… I'm really sorry. I could tell I upset you."

Quite honestly, Axel didn't like the suggestion that he'd been "upset". For some reason it made him feel so pathetic, like he was wrong to feel how he'd felt. That's the part that made him wonder: could his heart ever be wrong? Was that even a possibility, or was the heart the only reliable jurisdiction in the matter? And could he, somehow, have been wrong in being irked by what she'd said to him? Mentally, he felt strangely defensive about it — _of course_ he'd been justified in being irritated with her; she'd basically implied that he'd been lying about one of the few things he _hadn't _been lying about.

But objectively he knew she hadn't meant any harm in asking him about his friends and family nor in saying he'd been upset, so he reminded himself of his first rule with women: they are always right (if she says you were upset, you were upset, and that's that).

"Nah, it's uh… it's fine, and I… mighta overreacted a bit," he said after several moments passed. She didn't respond, but looked both surprised and concerned by his response. "Look, you really trust me?"

"Yes, I do," she said without hesitation, but with an odd look on her face.

"Then trust me. There's nothing I got to say about my past, because nothing about it's got anything to do with where I am now. Now, don't get me wrong; I'm no saint, I've told my share of tall tales just like the next guy — but this isn't one of 'em. It's done with, and that's that."

"Well…alright. If you're sure," she said after a long silence. Then she looked away, her eyes glued to the wall the bed leaned against. And faintly, very faintly he heard her whisper to herself, "You're troubled like he was, too…"

Axel was about to speak and ask her what she meant, but he was halted when she touched him gently on the shoulder, and he winced back instinctively, though she didn't remove her hand. She remained in that position for another silence before speaking once more. "I'm going to check on Sora… Keep the ice on that on and off for fifteen to twenty minutes. Okay?"

"'Kay…" Axel responded. He was surprised she was leaving so suddenly, but he was relieved that he was able to cleanse his thoughts of the prior night.

After she departed, he submitted to lying down on the bed. He was tempted to fall asleep, but he knew he had to remain awake; if the ice stayed on his face too long the blood would cease to flow there, and he figured that his face probably wasn't the best place for him to lose circulation. His free hand, his right, drifted to his pocket and he withdrew the ice cream stick.

He couldn't keep his eyes (or rather, his eye) off of it once it came out of his pocket. He held it in his hand for a few moments, just staring at it, this remnant of Roxas. And he felt sad.

He wasn't sure why exactly. He had felt sad about Roxas before, but it hadn't felt like this. Additionally, nothing that terrible had even happened to him personally that day; in fact, all of the less favorable things had happened to everyone else. It seemed like he was the only one who had been spared. So why, he wondered, did he feel just as terrible as the rest of them?

Feelings, Axel thought as he rested his eyes, were very complicated things indeed.


	19. Saving the Naïve

This is my personal favorite, the second-to-last chapter. Just saying.

* * *

><p>Axel spent a good few hours icing and not icing his eye and thinking some more about not thinking about Roxas and Ventus.<p>

But after that, he simply couldn't lay there anymore. He wasn't supposed to go around on his own, still, he knew, but he was already planning to disobey that rule, so he figured doing it one more time surely wouldn't impact his fate too much. He just couldn't bear it anymore, how he was sitting here and all he could manage was to feel sorry for himself.

He didn't know where he was going to go, really. He felt terrible, so ideally he'd go someplace to make himself feel better, but he didn't know where such a place would be. The only place he could think of where he could recall ever having been really, truly happy, was Twilight Town, so that's where he decided to go, even if it would only bring back more memories of the people he was trying to avoid thinking about. He couldn't just sit there.

He took the risk of using another portal, and while he knew he was being reckless once again his unhappiness was prompting him towards feeling indifferent; he almost wanted something to happen, just so that he could feel something different.

When he created his initial portal he placed the receiving portal at the sandlot, just because he knew there were benches and it was sunny there. Axel wondered if that was something he'd done as a kid — he wondered if he'd found just sitting in the sun as comforting then as he did now. Surely it was another one of those nuances he'd been wondering about.

Upon his arrival the sandlot was mostly empty, and he didn't know if that was typical or not; he and Sora had come around earlier in the day the times before. It was bordering on mid-afternoon right now, and the sun was beginning to set. Fortunately for Axel, none of the benches were occupied, so he was able to make the first choice. He chose the bench that was most directly in the sun, and then he just sat for a while. He didn't know if he was going to get sunburned or anything like that, but he wasn't worried. He supposed that was a result of the apathy he was feeling.

He'd thought about getting up and enduring the somewhat lengthy walk to the clock tower, but he just couldn't bring himself to do it. Sitting here was already familiar and painful enough; if he got even closer to his memories of Roxas, he wasn't sure he'd be able to stand it. And on top of that, he couldn't even get himself to move any further. He was so tired.

He sat for a long time, or at least to the extent he could tell. The sun had been in the sky when he'd begun sitting, and by now it was touching the tops of the buildings. But still he wasn't ready to leave yet. He was going to sit and absorb as many of those rays as he could manage, because for whatever reason they made him feel like his existence wasn't futile, like by simply soaking up the light of something that existed, he existed for a reason.

"Axel?" Axel straightened, shocked. He hadn't been expecting to hear his name. Turning his neck but not his body, he spotted two approaching figures: Hayner and Pence. "Hey, Axel!"

"Oh… hey," he said lamely, turning to them sluggishly. They were smiling. It made him feel sick.

"Where's Sora?" Hayner asked, surveying the area around them. Axel was slow to respond.

"Oh, um… he's got a little bug today."

"Is he okay?" Pence asked, a bit of a worried look taking over his face.

"He's uh… he should be fine. Yeah." Axel blinked a few times, furrowing his brow as he shook his head.

"Oh… oh…kay," Pence said, looking oddly at Axel.

"I see you're… missing a musketeer today?" Axel said, finally managing to gather his attention. "Where's she?" Here Pence's face changed, his eyes narrowing.

"I don't know. Hayner won't tell me," Pence said distastefully, glaring at the other boy. "Even after I already did everything he said."

"Hey, you haven't done _everything_. We're just getting started. I've got some other stuff for you to do for me," Hayner said, shooting a sideways grin at both Pence and Axel. Axel felt irritation begin to fill him. He flexed his fingers a few times, cracking his knuckles.

"C'mon, Hayner! By the time you tell me the day'll be over!" Pence pleaded.

"I'm not telling. Not yet." The grin was still present, and Axel felt so compelled to crush it.

"Tell us," Axel demanded suddenly. Hayner was quiet at first.

"You're gonna have to try harder than _that, _man," Hayner said a few moments later, laughing as he made eye contact with Axel.

And as he did, Axel felt something snap, something shatter within him. Suddenly everything was moving slowly and everything looked dark and terrible. He grabbed Hayner by his shirt collar, and the boy's face changed to mimic the dark and terrible atmosphere around him; his mouth hung down and his gaze fixed upward: the classic image of fear.

"Whoa! What're you doing, man? Put me down!" His eyes were open wide — blue saucers that looked nothing like Axel's own, but that were still the same.

"Grow the hell up, kid!" Axel shouted, and he felt distant; his own voice sounded far away. He didn't know what he was doing, but at the same time, he knew exactly what he was doing.

"What're you _talking—_" The kid was squirming in his grip, and Axel squeezed harder, holding him in place.

"If you've got stuff you can tell your friends, tell them. Got it memorized, brat?" Axel stared into his quivering eyes and continued, his grasp shaking as he tried to steady himself. "'Cause if you keep goin' around like this, someday they're all gonna leave you. They're gonna be tired of listening to you lie, and they're just gonna split — no warnings, no hints, no nothing."

Hayner hadn't blinked for over twenty seconds.

"And you know what?" Axel continued, his nails digging through his gloves and the boy's shirt. "You're not gonna know it until they're already gone. You'll be standing there, wondering what the hell just happened, and then… then it'll all be over." The boy now seemed to be paralyzed, and he lay limp as he dangled half a meter off the ground.

"Her grandma came to visit!" Hayner exclaimed, breaking eye contact with Axel. Axel was shocked out of his trance, his grip loosening and his eyes widening. "Please just put me down!"

Not saying anything, Axel obeyed. What he'd just done — it almost hadn't felt real, like he'd actually been doing it. He tried to catch his breath.

Hayner scrambled back upon being placed upon the ground, standing next to Pence, both of them looking fearfully at Axel. Axel just stared at the floor for a while, still neither there nor away, but somewhere in the between. They probably thought he was crazy, but he didn't care at all. What they thought of him just didn't matter anymore.

Finally, he dug into his pocket, and he saw both of them jump.

"Here," he said, throwing the small sliver of wood onto the brick in front of them. "See you… see you around."

And with that, he left.

* * *

><p>Axel iced his eye for a while longer when he returned to the hotel.<p>

After doing so and having grown tired and bored, he'd fallen asleep. It had still been early when he had slept, so it was the middle of the night when he awoke again. His face felt better; in fact, the swelling had gone down enough that he was able to see out of the eye again. He was glad. When he finally saw Roxas again he'd be able to see him with both eyes.

Glancing to the clock as he stood, Axel noted the time: 3:13. It was the perfect time for him to leave; no one was awake and he'd been able to regain some of his energy.

It was time to go. He didn't know what he was feeling now. Surely it was a mix of a lot of different emotions, but Axel had all but given up on distinguishing between all of them. The indifference that had been around for hours now was still plaguing him, still leaving him hopelessly entranced. So as he walked across the room to leave, he couldn't say he had the slightest clue what was going to happen.

As he readied to turn the doorknob, a blast overtook him, and his mind went blank.

Axel groaned as he once again awoke on the floor of the abyss-like world.

"Hey, Ax, how goes it?" Axel hadn't heard that voice for a while; his own voice, echoing back at him. He wasn't disconcerted at all. He'd almost been expecting it.

"There've been more carefree times in my life, that's for sure."

"Sorry to hear it," Lea replied. "So… you really gonna do this?"

"Yeah."

"I guess… if your mind's made up. But I gotta warn you… He might not be what you're expecting. There's a chance you might get 'im back, but there's a chance you might not. You understand that."

"Well, duh," Axel replied after a while, initiating eye contact. "That's like saying when you flip a coin you _might_ end up with heads or tails."

"Fine, jackass," Lea replied, oddly serious. "But I wouldn't get your hopes up too high if I were…"

"If you were me?" Axel finished with a shallow laugh. "Don't worry, I've got it memorized."

"Well, good." Lea stood still after answering.

He seemed to have nothing else to say, so quietly he turned back around and began to walk through the darkness, which was beginning to fade already.

And as he disappeared, Axel knew he would never see him again.

When Axel awoke once more he was on the ground, as usual, and had to force himself back to his feet with some effort. Considering his distance from the door, he was lucky he hadn't fallen and hit anything. He sat quietly for a few moments.

Then, finally, Axel turned the doorknob, ready to meet his Destiny.

Emerging in the hall, Axel began to walk in the direction of the doorway, when he heard another door open. Wheeling around, Axel found Ventus standing directly behind him.

"I knew it," he said. Axel was frozen.

"Ven…"

"Where are you going?" He'd said it quickly, as if he were forcefully demanding an answer.

Axel didn't respond.

"I asked _where you're going_!" He raised his voice noticeably.

"Hey, you're gonna wake everyone up —"

"Where?" His voice was getting louder.

"The World That Never Was," he answered, leaning in close to Ventus, hoping the boy would quiet.

"Why?"

"I think… someone's there who's waiting for me."

"Who?"

"You don't know him."

"I'm coming with you."

"Ven, I'm tellin' ya, you don't know him —"

"I don't care!" Ventus raised his voice again.

"It's dangerous, Ven," Axel whispered. "You shouldn't come."

"What does it matter? Everyone's gone anyway." It sounded so depressing that Axel was taken aback. Ventus was staring at him. His gaze had hardened; it had become much darker than it had been the days before. That was what grief does to people, Axel supposed, but it wasn't easy to look at. The hardened gaze made Axel feel as if he were being glared at, as if all the hatred Ventus felt towards whomever had extinguished The Land of Departure was being channeled against Axel.

"You have plenty to live for. Don't be such a freakin' killjoy—"

"You're all I have, Lea!" Axel winced at the usage of his former name. "You're the only one I remember… the only one who's still here! If you leave and you don't come back, what'll I do? Huh? What?"

The stone-cold gaze had softened to a look of desperation. It had been so hard to say no to that look the first time.

"You've just gotta…" Axel heard the words he wanted to say: _Trust me. You just gotta trust me._

_Look how well _that _one worked out the last time. Roxas left you. Might have a bit to do with why he hates you. Now, look — you've lined yourself up to do it again. _Axel let his expression change. _So… what're you gonna do?_

"Fine."

Ventus's eyes changed as if he were shocked that Axel had given in, but he said nothing of it.

"Let's go."

Axel nodded, and they both walked to the end of the hallway and then out the door. They'd walked for about another minute before Axel stopped suddenly. Ventus just looked back at him expectantly, without even saying a word.

"I think… we'd better go by corridor. Wouldn't be too good if we took the ship and never came back."

"Corrid…or?" Ventus repeated.

"Watch," Axel said, reaching his arm out and letting it get encased by the blackish-purple. Ventus had flinched at its appearance and made a few steps backwards. Axel placed his arm through the newly-formed gateway. "See, it's a portal. Just gotta step into it."

"How do you…do that?" Ventus asked, a bewildered look on his face as he stuck his arm into it and saw it vanish.

"It's a long story," Axel replied quickly. "Now c'mon…"

Still hesitant, Ventus entered the portal, arms outstretched in front of him as if they would save him from any of the dangers ahead. As Axel followed him through, he let the entrance close behind him, its remnants vanishing into the always-present dark, moonlit sky of Traverse Town.

He landed them in Fragment Crossing purposefully. He was a bit concerned that Roxas would try to blindside him at or as he approached the castle. It was best, he figured, to be cautious on the approach and not do anything reckless. He'd already done more than his share of reckless things in the last couple of weeks.

It was obvious that Ventus had never been to this world, as he was staring in awe at the many skyscrapers that surrounded the area as they began to navigate the crossing. His face had changed completely once again, now he almost seemed excited for whatever they might encounter. His eyes as well as his mouth were both wide open, taking in as much of his surroundings as was possible. Now he was smiling the same smile that Axel had seen so many times before.

They rounded the final corner of Fragment Crossing, and Ventus's awe was now audible.

"Wow!" he said upon seeing the neon signs of Memory's Skyscraper. "Look —"

Ventus launched himself back suddenly, and Axel straightened at the movement, eyes glued to the ground. Next to where Ventus had jumped from, a keyblade was now lodged in the cement of the world. Gasping, Axel searched for the source, Ventus acting similarly.

They both spotted him at once — he was standing atop Memory's Skyscraper, the moon shining brightly from beside him. The keyblade in the cement disappeared now, presumably returning to its wielder. The blade didn't reappear in Roxas's hand. Instead he continued to stand there, without a word. Both parties were just staring at one another.

When he didn't seem as if he was about to attack the two of them, Axel decided to finally speak.

"Roxas…" Axel said. "C'mon. You gotta talk to me… tell me… what…"

"Shut up," the voice said. Axel's eyes widened as the boy threw back his hood, revealing a devilish smile as he stood from high atop the skyscraper. Axel's eyes widened.

This couldn't be right, it couldn't be — all of this was just some exaggerated façade constructed to trick him into thinking this — it wasn't possible. Not at all.

"I've got to be completely honest, here — I wasn't expecting to be fortunate enough to get all of you here at once. That really was lucky of me." The boy continued as he smiled wider. "It'll sure save us a lot of time… I get to kill you all here, at the same time. Though it's a shame I didn't manage to get you at Yen Sid's tower. Shoulda made a move when I had the chance back at the Old Mansion, too. Too bad I was in a rush…"

"Kill… us? All…" Axel heard Ventus whisper from his trance; he was still too dumbfounded by that face — that face that wasn't Roxas.

"That's right," the boy's voice became more solemn. "You don't belong here. All you're doing is hurting Sora by being here, you know."

"Hurting…"

"You mean you really don't know? He's sick because of you two. When you split from his heart you took his health with you. There are already three of you running about. If one more gets out, I don't know _what _I'll do." He lifted his arms almost mockingly.

"Three?" Axel repeated aloud. He couldn't help but think of the keys. "You've… got to have made a mistake, man. There are only two of us — no third."

"Don't lie. She's been helping you all along. What, you think figured everything out all on your own? You're a parasite. _That's _the reason that you kept fainting, you idiot — you weren't taking as much as you needed to survive. It stopped because you finally stole just enough — though it looks like you've been waning a bit. You needed Sora, and you needed her, too. You needed someone to help you."

He let these words hang in the air for a few moments.

"Like the mansion? She told you I was there."

Axel gasped a little for air as the memories exploded in his head. It all came flooding back in that instant, that mention of her existence. The friendship, the separation, the retrieval — it all came back in a single second. _She _had been the one, the one that he had been trying to remember those times with Kairi. _She _was the one Kairi reminded him of. His breathing began to speed up as the shock overtook him.

"I don't know what she wants, anyways. She said she was going back to where she belonged. In your head isn't where she belongs, that's for sure. Oh, and what about the book? You think you picked that book out all by yourself? She was the one that told you it was important.

"How 'bout Ventus? You didn't remember that name, did you?" Axel saw Ventus tense out of the corner of his eye. "See, she's been giving you hints all along."

"But… where's Roxas?" Axel asked, clenching his fist so tightly that his knuckles burned white from within his gloves.

"Oh, don't worry, he's where he belongs."

"And where's that?" Axel asked harshly.

"It's no fun if I tell you. You'll find out after I put you straight."

"Put us… straight?" Ventus repeated. He was shaking, and had been since the rambling had begun.

"Yes, I already said that." He sighed, withdrawing his keyblade. "Anyways, we've talked enough. It's time for you to die."

"Not without a fight!" Ventus declared frantically, eyes wide as he summoned his keyblade without a second thought. He looked to Axel, astonishment on his face. Axel hadn't moved. His eyes remained fixated on the floor, lifeless.

"Good. An unmoving target and weak one. Perfect for practice." And with that, he jumped off of the scraper.

The world slowed. The boy was coming in from above, closer by the second. Axel closed his eyes.

He was ready.


	20. Awakening

I apologize for how long this took me to post and how short it is. I spent a long time pondering if this is really how I wanted to end it... but it is. I can understand if there is dissatisfaction, but... so it goes. This is the end; take it as you will.

* * *

><p>Axel looked up just soon enough to see Ventus vanish. It was his fault, he knew. But it didn't matter, because it was his turn.<p>

Yes, it was his turn. His turn to, finally, die. The fate that he had long awaited. He was staring death literally straight in the eye. The boy charged again — closer, closer, and Axel closed his eyes, awaiting his death.

However, to both Axel and the boy's surprise, his death was halted. And it was halted once again by none other than Sora's keyblade.

"Riku!" Sora shouted as the clank of the metal striking shook the area. As the impact had struck, he'd seemed to have straightened. His body had become more relaxed, stronger. Any sickness that might have been present in the prior moments had all but evaporated with that single blow — the boy, Riku, was telling the truth. Once Ventus had returned to Sora, Sora had regained strength.

That made it all true. It hadn't been Axel's imagination, the boy in front of them wasn't Roxas at all; it was Riku. Axel should have known, all along it had just been him hoping that same sort of hope that had overwhelmed him every time he went to the clock tower; he had hoped so much that he had _known _that it was Roxas, he had _known _it. The human mind could be convinced of almost anything, after all.

"Riku… what are you _doing_?"

Sora asked the question as he looked around the area nearest to them, as if he were searching for some trace of Ventus's lost spirit. Instead, all he could see were Kairi and Axel, both of whom were standing dutifully still. Kairi, Axel noticed, was staring at him frightfully, her large blue eyes so wide that it seemed as if they were being held open by something more powerful than her own will.

"Sora," Riku said, smiling as he broke the contact with Sora's keyblade. "It's fitting that you'd be around for your own reunion."

"My… reunion? What are you talking about?"

"Didn't you feel it, Sora? Just now? The strength that you gained once Ventus returned to you?" Sora's jaw hung ajar, but he remained silent.

"I tried to get it done without you around, so you didn't have to hear the whole story — but I guess it's destined to be told.

"I've been after _him" — _Riku thrust a finger in Axel's direction — "since he left your heart a couple weeks ago. I knew you'd be too close to him to let me take him out. Unfortunately, you guys were keeping _so_ close to him that I couldn't manage to take him out while you were around, even with _my_ skills. And it's not like I could risk telling Kairi or Aerith because they'd for sure tell you, so we told everyone else and kept out of the way. I tried tons of other things, of course. You know how hard it was to control a Heartless? To get it to attack a specific target? And how difficult it was to round up a whole town full of people? That plan would have worked if my trap had gone off. Man, I let him run loose for so long, Ventus popped out… so I guess things just couldn't be kept under the table. It's sad, but I'm going to have to kill him right in front of you…

"Unless, of course… you want to do it." And as he spoke, the rain began to fall.

The feeling of the raindrops pelting his skin was like none he'd experienced in his time as a Middlebody. The droplets were cold, freezing even, and they pained him with every strike they made against his already drained body. But it felt strangely invigorating. In all truth, it made no sense at all — the rain was causing him pain, as it always had, but for some reason he felt drawn to it; he didn't _want _to run from it this time. He had been enveloped by this peculiar sensation of excruciating bliss, of agonizing pleasure, and for some reason he was relishing in all of it; he was enjoying feeling the rain extinguish the last of his eternal flames. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Kairi and Sora staring at him; it was as if they were waiting for him to suddenly vanish as he was doused, as if they expected something catastrophic to happen in response to the water, something that would justify why he had tried so desperately to avoid it.

Axel ignored them all, and stood silently. The moon was bright tonight; it shone through the rain with no difficulty at all. When he looked at it it he thought of life itself; it was so bright but so fleeting. A few stars glowed radiantly from beside the moon's own light, although they lacked the powerful projection offered by the moon's presence; in fact, they were dwarfed by it. A slight breeze had just blown through the group, and Axel closed his eyes as the wind lightly brushed a few of his spikes across his face. He could still see the moon's strength through the buffer of his eyelids and the rain, and he felt a wave of relaxation overtake him. He could feel their eyes staring at him, his disposition so calm in the face of death, and he found that he himself was surprised by his composure. He'd been given a second chance of sorts, yet he didn't fear loss of it at all.

Because, after all of this, he finally knew who he was now, _what _he was now: a part of Sora. And that was enough.

Sora's eyes slowly trailed towards Axel's own. Axel, despite the racing thoughts pulsating through his mind, remained perfectly still without concession. He blinked naturally as Sora's eyes met his. Sora's eyes were filled with fear, much more fear than were present in Axel's own.

Riku was clearly getting impatient. The opportunity was now; Axel's death was imminent.

"If you won't do it, I will!" Riku shouted, launching himself in Axel's direction.

"No!" Sora exclaimed, blocking him hastily. Axel was frozen in place. Riku looked distraught.

"I'm sorry that I have to do this, Sora," Riku said, sighing. "But it's for your own good."

The darkness was crawling up Riku's body as he began to hover in the air. Light began to infiltrate it and the two met at his keyblade, which had turned a glistening white and had grown larger than a meter. A frown had formed on Riku's face as he shook his head.

"I promise, Sora… you'll only be out for a few days."

And with that, he let the blast loose.

Axel moved so quickly that no one even noticed until it was too late. A smile had spread across his face in the few seconds that it had taken him to step in front of Sora. It seemed demonic given the situation, but he almost wanted to laugh. It wouldn't be the same, he knew, if he didn't do it with a smile.

He was looking Sora straight into the eyes with his back to Riku for a matter of moments.

"Axel!" Sora shouted as Axel collapsed to the ground. Riku seemed shocked as he regained his stance from about twenty meters away. Sora repeated Axel's name again as Kairi ran over. They were both whispering his name now.

He'd been struck hard, and he was lying quietly, painfully, but it was clear that this had not been meant to be a finishing blow. He was still conscious, and his eyes remained open, the smile still shining bright beneath the moonlight and the stormy skies.

"Sora," he said, choking. With some effort, he fabricated a confident demeanor. "I am Axel, Nobody of Lea."

"It's time to die!" Riku exclaimed furiously upon seeing that Sora was still conscious. He turned to the fallen Axel as the darkness once again began to creep and intertwine in his palms. "Die!"

The power was growing. Some blood escaped Axel's throat as he sputtered. Axel opened his mouth, and Riku unleashed the stream of energy that he had created. Axel spoke:

"Forgive me," he said, the white of the final attack throttling at him. "And never, never forget."

And as he spoke, her voice met his, and both could be heard together. He had her consent. Their purpose had been fulfilled; it was time for it all to end.

No, Sora mouthed. He stood in front of the blast as if he were attempting to copy Axel's own deed just moments ago. If he hadn't been half-dead, Axel would have laughed. But instead he focused, he had to, focus his strength — and he used it to throw Sora out of the way.

_You've done what you came here to do_. Axel heard her voice in his head. _You've been forgiven. And you've… remembered me. _

_There's nothing else left to do._

And as the blow struck, Axel was sure Sora could make out three more words, but only by reading his lips:

_Got it… memorized?_

Their faces became even more bewildered at the spoken words, and as the blade sliced through his flesh they reached their climaxes. Immediately the sounds of the world became muffled to Axel, but through it all he could clearly hear them shout his name as the light began to pervade from his chest outward. He could see them running towards him. It was silly, he thought. It was as if they were consumed by some fantasy that they could possibly aid him, that they could save him, and it wasn't until they were a mere half a meter away from him that he could see the expressions on their faces. And he knew that they remembered too, with his departure it was returning. He could no longer hear them, but he could still read the words on their lips as the tears began to stream down their cheeks:

I forgive you. I forgive you, they mouthed, and he wondered how it was possible, but he didn't question it — maybe it was the fact that he was leaving that made it so easy to accept. He didn't have any choices by now.

His sight was beginning to blur, but their mouths still continued to move; they kept repeating it over and over, I forgive you, I forgive you. He was feeling himself beginning to leave, beginning to go to Sora.

And then, suddenly, he could see Roxas. When he looked into Sora's pleading eyes, Roxas's were there too. All along, through all of it, Roxas had been right there, right there beside him. Axel should have realized it, that same smile, that same helpful and happy demeanor. The whole time, his best friend had been beside him.

And then he saw the key, the one around his neck, float in front of him, and he could see it turning, rotating, and then he heard a click — and the gate opened. The one that led to all of them: Roxas, Ventus, Xion and even himself.

As he was entering the gate he could feel it coming back to him, all the things he'd wanted to know were flooding back: his favorite color, his skin susceptibility, all of it. Roxas was smiling at him. They were _all _smiling at him: all smiles that he had so yearned for and recognized. But it didn't matter. Not at all. Because, for the first time since the day Roxas had left, Axel felt like he could finally be done; he could finally be at peace. He wouldn't know how to describe how he was feeling right now, but his heart felt like a warm, comfortable thing, and it made up for all the dreadful things it had made him feel before. And as the warm feeling became all-encompassing, Axel knew it had all been worth it, even if the feeling only lasted until the gate closed its doors.

Suddenly Roxas began to move, and Axel was startled. He reached out his arm, presumably for Axel to grasp, but it was much too far out of Axel's reach. But he was getting there. Soon enough he'd be with him, the boy who had been his friend all along.

As he drifted he thought of all he had done in the past couple of weeks. He'd built up relationships and he'd torn them down. It was so brief and difficult, he thought; it was so representative of life as a whole. But as long as he'd had an impact, as long as _something _had been changed for the better by his hands, he felt he'd accomplished something, and he couldn't help feeling right now that he'd accomplished a great deal. All the mistakes he'd made, all the lies he'd told, all the shame he'd felt was now suddenly dwarfed by his pride in all the good he had done. The only reasoning behind this that Axel could think of was so that he could die in peace, this beautiful peace he now didn't want to leave.

He was continuing to drift away, and it was all eerily like a dream: he felt no pain, none at all, despite the blood that was still pouring out of his chest. He felt separate from everything now, like he was aware of his environment but he'd lost the ability to interact with it. He no longer had control over anything; whatever was happening now was going to happen no matter what he did or thought — it was inescapable.

Who, he wondered, would ever have thought that, all along, every human being in every world imaginable already knew what death is truly like?

Axel reached an arm out to touch the image of Roxas and the others that was fading before him, recalling where all of this had begun, with him and Lea together, just like this.

The truth is, Axel supposed, life is but a dream, and death is but an awakening.

He thought this with a sort of certainty, but honestly he didn't really know what to think; he could not even be really dying; he had no way of knowing. Who, after all, knew what death really was, what it really felt like and what it really meant? Maybe death was just a word. Maybe it didn't even really mean anything. Maybe death was just how someone defined a different kind of life.

Axel opened his eyes wider as his vision distorted once more. Finally, the light was dissipating, and the gate was closing its doors. It was being overtaken by the darkness, consumed, until it was all black.

It was all black.

Darkness.


End file.
